Portugal and Spain show resilience to Middle East energy shocks thanks to renewables says EDP CEO

A reduced dependency on gas and a growing reliance on renewable sources of energy means that both Portugal and Spain are in a better position to withstand the fluctuating energy prices resulting from the conflicts in the Middle East.

This is according to the CEO of Portugal’s largest energy generator and supplier, EDP and EDPR, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, who was the keynote speaker at the event ‘Data-to-Doorstep’ Boom in Portugal: Data Centers, Submarine Cables and Logistics as the New Transatlantic Real Estate” organised by the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham Portugal) at the Lisbon law firm Morais Leitao on Wednesday. (April 22).

“This type of crisis once again shows how important it is to continue investing in renewable energy and energy self-sufficiency”, he said, echoing comments he had repeated at the WindEurope 2026 conference in Madrid the previous day.

The CEO’s understanding is based on a structural difference compared to other European markets.

“Gas only marked the price at around 15 hours this year, whereas in countries like Italy, it marked around 85 hours and this lesser exposure to natural gas enabled the impact of price increases to be cushioned to maintain more stable electricity,” he said.

This protection resulted above all from the proportion of renewables in the Iberian electrical energy system, reducing over dependence on fossil fuels.

And pointed out at the Lisbon conference, “Over 75%-80% of our electrical energy in Portugal through solar, wind and hydro-power.

“We don’t have to work on the batteries component, we have pumps that essentially act as gigantic batteries, and we have cheap and, clean energy and this is also compatible with the large players and off-takers – the Googles and Amazons which actually require clean energy plus we meet ESG standards and so Portugal is very well placed to comply with this,” he added.

But, effectively, today, if Portugal wanted to satisfy future demand, it still had a long way to go.

“This issue of European competitiveness, or Portugal’s competitiveness compared to the European average, I think, is a very relevant topic, because often the competitiveness of Europe is discussed, and we look at the statistical figures and say that Europe is less competitive than the United States.

I would like to say that sometimes these generalisations are not good, often they are due to misunderstandings. When comparing the European average with the average of the United States, we are comparing averages that sometimes mean nothing.

In the United States, California has very different energy prices from Texas, which are very different from Indiana, which are very different from New York. There are many realities within the United States, just as there are many realities within Europe”, he stressed.

Comparing the energy price of Germany with Iberia or Scandinavia was not the same thing according to the EDP CEO.

“Sometimes we make generalisations, but if we look closely, the Iberian Peninsula is as competitive as, or even more competitive than, many American states. We can say this because we operate in more than 20 American states, we sell energy—as you know, it represents our biggest sales market—we sell energy to Big Tech companies in the United States and we sell energy to Big Tech companies here, and we sell it cheaper here than we do there”, concluded Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, CEO of EDP and renewables arm EDPR.