Brussels, 01/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - At its first meeting, in Paris on Tuesday 30 June, the high-level group for South-West Europe interconnection reviewed projects for better connecting the Iberian peninsula with France and the rest of the EU internal energy market.
Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete and Energy Ministers Ségolène Royal, of France, José Manuel Soria, of Spain, and Jorge Moreira da Silva, of Portugal, signed the memorandum of understanding creating this working group which will be responsible for implementing the Madrid Declaration, signed at the summit on 3 March between the Commission and the three countries.
At the first meeting, which followed the signing of the memorandum of understanding, the group considered the various infrastructure projects identified at the Madrid summit, beginning with the electricity interconnection line between Santa Llogaia and Baixas, which came on stream on 20 January, doubling trading capacity between France and Spain from 1,400 to 2,800 megawatts.
The group also examined the project under study for an underwater electric cable across the Bay of Biscay which would increase electricity trading capacity between France and Spain by 5,000 megawatts at an estimated cost of €1.9 billion. The group looked, too, at the two electricity interconnection projects across the Pyrenees which would bury cables to avoid environmental damage, and the MidCat gas project linking Catalonia with the South of France.
Lastly, the group discussed gas transit capacities between France and Spain, which will be increased to 7 billion cubic metres by the end of 2015 thanks to work currently taking place which will provide a trading capacity equivalent to 15% of French consumption or 20% of Spanish consumption, a press release from the French Energy Ministry states.
As the Commission said at the start of June, the group's discussions will focus on development of an “eastern line” that will allow gas to flow in both directions between the Iberian peninsula and the French gas system and on ways to eliminate internal bottlenecks which prevent the free movement of gas between the Iberian peninsula and the French gas system.
Studies commissioned by the European executive on the advantages, costs and technical possibilities of new electricity and gas interconnections between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of the EU will be presented in the autumn and in December respectively. (Emmanuel Hagry)