Spain’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business and the European Investment Bank (EIB) are providing €870 million in financing to energy company Naturgy to strengthen and digitalise its electricity distribution grids in Spain.
The package includes two loans — €520 million from Spain’s Regional Resilience Fund and €350 million from the EIB — to support upgrades to Naturgy’s distribution network, the EIB announced on Thursday.
The funding will support work in five autonomous communities: Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, Castile and León, Galicia and Madrid.
Naturgy plans to build and reinforce around 2,300 km of electricity networks, including new lines and upgrades to existing infrastructure.
The €520 million loan has been signed and is being channelled through the Regional Resilience Fund, which uses NextGenerationEU funding under Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
The second loan totals €350 million, with €200 million already signed, and will be financed from the EIB’s own resources.
Digital upgrades and network reinforcements
The investment will include automation and remote control systems, wider digitalisation of the grid, connecting new users and meeting increased demand, and measures to reduce grid losses, the EIB said.
It will also include work to put some infrastructure underground and make parts of the network more compact.
Naturgy’s distribution network in Spain totals more than 116,000 km of power lines.
The EIB provided €11.6 billion worldwide for electricity grid and storage system projects in 2025, while in Spain the EIB Group financed €1.9 billion in grid investments that year.
Between 2021 and 2025, it financed the construction or upgrade of 45,000 km of electricity networks in Spain.
