La red nacional y la integración de los mercados eléctricos españoles durante los años de entreguerras. ¿Otra oportunidad perdida?

This essay examines the opportunity of erecting a national electricity network before 1936. Regional markets were created by coordinating electricity networks in France, Switzerland and Great Britain during the twenties. In Spain, a review of technical journals indicates that this issue had become significant in the nationalistic economic policy environment of the inter-war period. The Spanish Government made several attempts at setting up a national electricity grid through public tenders. However, none of the projects succeeded and the development of an electricity-grid was left to private firms' initiative and the network did not achieve a national coverage until the 1980s. Seen from the standpoint of the 1930s, the high investment costs the interconnection required rendered this project unfeasible. As a matter of fact, a national-grid may not have represented an alternative to dam-building in order to improve the efficiency of the Spanish electrical system.