Sagunto faces an electricity bottleneck slowing new investment
Transvia has spent more than a year unable to open its electric bus base in Sagunto due to a lack of available power, as the town goes through an industrial boom linked to PowerCo.
Transvia, the company that runs part of the electric bus fleet for the Valencia II public transport contract, has been waiting more than a year to open its operations base in Sagunto. The project includes an investment of €700,000 to €1 million and around 15 jobs, but it remains stuck because there is not enough available electrical power at either of the two plots requested, one next to the Palancia river and another near Puçol. Meanwhile, the company's 18 electric buses charge at facilities in Vall d'Uixó and El Puig instead.
According to general manager Joan Lostado, the problem is not only electrical: building permits are also slowed by railway, road, and archaeological restrictions. Red Eléctrica, the company that by law is Spain's only high-voltage grid operator, has recently turned down requests in the Valencian Community adding up to 132.5 megawatts. Sagunto City Council says no company has raised this complaint with it and denies that the PowerCo battery gigafactory (Volkswagen Group), backed by hundreds of millions of euros in public funding, is slowing down other investments in the municipality. According to Valencia Plaza.