‘How can Europe be more autonomous? We have wind, hydro, solar and nuclear energy’, says Ignacio Galán in Davos

The chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, has advocated the need to maintain nuclear energy in Europe, during his intervention in a live panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. In his opinion, in order to be self-sufficient and autonomous from an energy point of view with respect to third parties, the continent must have clean technologies: ‘We have wind, hydroelectric, solar and nuclear energy’, but no gas and little oil. Moreover, renewables are competitive and new installations are cheaper to build than those that require fossil fuels. 

‘At least the nuclear plants that are already in operation, we have shown that they are safe, efficient and absolutely necessary to keep the lights on at a time when new demands are growing, such as data centres that require a stable supply 24 hours a day, seven days a week,’ he said.

During his speech on the panel entitled ‘The importance of climate technology’, in the ‘Industries in the smart era’ section, the chairman of Iberdrola said that electrification is the ‘best and fastest way to decarbonise the economy’.

In this regard, Galán generally advocated a new drive for electrification in the European Union so as not to be left behind not only by the United States, but also by China. In this respect, he warned that ‘in Europe we fly the flag for the green economy’ but ‘we are behind some of the countries that we have criticised the most, such as China’, which has made notable progress in electrification.