• Strategic investments in the region are hanging in the balance not because of a lack of capital or business ambition, but because the electrical infrastructure is unable to absorb demand.

  • “There are industries that want to decarbonize and can’t because they have no access to the grid,” said Carlos Navalpotro, President of AZSA and AEGE.

  • In less than six months, Asturias has lost 136 MW of available electrical capacity — a 17% contraction with no signs of reversal.

  • Asturias has much to lose if this trend is not reversed: a unique industrial fabric, a historic dependence on the energy sector, and projects that could relocate elsewhere.

May 15, 2026

The energy transition has often been framed as a long-term technological race, but for Asturias’ industrial sector, the finish line appears blocked by a far more mundane — yet equally critical — obstacle: real access to the grid. The recent warning issued by Carlos Navalpotro, President of Asturiana de Zinc (AZSA) and AEGE, is not an isolated complaint, but rather the symptom of a broader structural issue that, from Foro Industria y Energía (FIE), we have been monitoring with growing concern.

The situation is clear: strategic investments for the region are being jeopardized not by a lack of financing or industrial willingness, but by the inability of the electrical infrastructure to absorb additional demand. AZSA, Spain’s largest electricity consumer through a single connection point, has been denied an increase of just 3 MW of power capacity, despite long-term expansion plans requiring up to 45 MW.

The Map Doesn’t Lie: Asturias in Free Fall of Capacity

At Foro Industria y Energía, we have spent months building a rigorous and up-to-date picture of the state of Spain’s electrical substations. The data for Asturias is unequivocal — and frankly alarming.

In October 2025, the Principality had 199 substations, of which 52 (26%) already had no available capacity. The total free capacity across the regional grid stood at 794.8 MW. Just five months later, in March 2026, the picture had changed significantly: the number of substations without available capacity had risen to 75, representing 37.3% of the total, while available megawatts had dropped to 658.7 MW. In absolute terms, Asturias lost 136 MW of capacity in less than half a year — a 17% contraction following a sustained trend with no signs of reversal.

At a national level, our March 2026 analysis confirms that 86.3% of Spain’s electrical substations no longer have available capacity. Asturias is not an exception: it is the regional reflection of a problem that has become structural.

Industry Wants to Electrify. The Grid Won’t Let It.

AZSA is not an isolated case. It is simply the most visible and articulate example of a structural problem affecting the entire Spanish industrial sector: grid saturation and opacity in access management are creating an environment of declining competitiveness that cannot be solved through political voluntarism alone.

“There are industries that want to decarbonize and cannot because they have no access to the grid,” Navalpotro warned. The sentence perfectly captures the paradox: companies are being pushed toward greener and more sustainable energy management, yet they are being denied the most basic tool required to achieve it.

And as Eduardo Álvarez, Technical Director of FIE and Professor at the University of Oviedo, rightly pointed out, available capacity at substations should not be interpreted as a blank check: it is not enough for megawatts to exist — they must be located where industry actually needs them. A large-scale electro-intensive project may require such high levels of power that it necessitates bespoke infrastructure or the import of energy from outside the region, undermining the project’s economic viability from the outset.

What Is at Stake

The situation is, in the words of representatives from companies such as EDP, “dramatic.” While Asturias’ Industrial Production Index fell by 7.1% in March, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) — the second worst figure nationwide — electrical infrastructure was consolidating itself as the main bottleneck preventing recovery.

We said it in these pages months ago: there will be no Made in Europe without a Powered by Europe. And there will be no Powered by Europe if the electrical infrastructure meant to sustain it continues shutting the door on those willing to invest, grow, and decarbonize. Asturias, with its unique industrial base and historic dependence on the energy sector, has much to lose if this trend is not reversed.

The data is on the table. The substation map shows it with precision. AZSA’s president has said it out loud. What is now needed is for those with the capacity to act — Red Eléctrica, the Ministry, the CNMC, and regional governments — to respond with the same urgency that industry itself is demanding. Competitiveness depends not only on being green, but on being operational. And the time for reflection must urgently give way to the time for execution.