Adapting Portugal's Grid to Climate Change: The Selective Undergrounding Challenge
Despacho No. 2235/2026 tasks DGEG with studying the selective undergrounding of power lines to protect the grid from fires and extreme storms.
Despacho No. 2235/2026 signals an important shift for the Portuguese energy sector: the focus is no longer only on decarbonisation, but on the physical and operational protection of the infrastructure that carries that energy. DGEG has been tasked with assessing the selective undergrounding of lines, cross-referencing climate, forestry and systemic data to build a risk map, within a 180-day deadline.
Overhead vs. underground: the options on the table
Reinforcing overhead lines is the solution with the lowest immediate financial impact, but it keeps the network exposed to rural fires and falling vegetation. Fully undergrounding cables offers maximum protection, but can cost 5 to 10 times more than overhead lines. "Selective undergrounding" emerges as a middle path: burying cables only in areas of very high forest-fire risk or at network bottlenecks, requiring transition terminals between overhead and underground sections.
- DGEG diagnosis of climate, forestry and systemic vulnerability
- Comparison of technical solutions: overhead reinforcement, full undergrounding and selective undergrounding
- Mandatory integration with the PDIRT (transport, REN) and PDIRD (distribution, E-Redes) network plans
- Possible funding through the European Union's Grids Package