Brussels, 18/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - In addition to its inventory drawn up for the Energy Union project, the European Commission has unveiled an updated list of essential energy infrastructure projects for the EU, known as Projects of Common Interest (PCI).
This new list updates the list adopted in October 2013 and subsequently includes 195 key energy infrastructure projects (instead of the 248 projects in 2013) that will help deliver Europe's energy and climate objectives and form key building blocks of the EU's Energy Union based on four key criteria.
These projects will bring significant benefits to at least two member states and contribute to integration of the energy markets and increase competition. They will help strengthen the EU's energy security by diversifying the energy sources and transport routes and putting a stop to the energy isolation of certain member states. They will also boost the level of renewables on the grid and help reduce carbon emissions.
The list adopted on Wednesday includes 108 electricity sector infrastructure projects, 77 gas, 7 oil and 3 smart grids projects.
The projects will benefit from a number of advantages: improved regulatory treatment by allocating costs according to the net benefits, and regulatory incentives; accelerated permit granting procedures (binding three-and-a-half-years' time limit); a single national competent authority will act as a one-stop-shop for permit granting procedures and improved, faster and better streamlined environmental assessment.
To ensure their swift implementation and to make them more attractive to investors, PCIs benefit from financial support from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in the form of subsidies and novel financial instruments. A budget of €5.35 billion has been allocated to trans-European energy infrastructure under the CEF from 2014-20. Under CEF, in 2014 and 2015, €797 million has been allocated to co-finance studies and construction works to help implement the PCIs. The European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) will also help leverage the investment needed.
Since the adoption of the first list of PCIs in 2013, 13 projects have been completed or will be operational by the end of 2015 and a further 62 projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2017. The Commission has played a key role in getting many of these projects off the ground, either through political action and facilitating common agreement between two countries on the way forward or by providing technical and/or financial support to the projects.
The list of PCIs is updated every two years with the aim to integrate newly needed projects and remove obsolete ones. This is a result of a selection process carried out by 12 regional workgroups set up according to the TEN-E regulation of 2011 and which each take charge of a specific area or priority corridor (Eastern electricity, Western electricity, Eastern gas, Western gas, Southern gas corridor, oil connection in central Europe, offshore wind turbine network in the North Sea, the Baltic interconnection plan etc.). These groups consist of representatives from the member states, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for electricity and gas (ENTSO-E and ENTSO-G), national transmission system operators and project promoters, national regulatory authorities, and the Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). Feedback from the public consultation has also been taken into account. The results of a public consultation were also taken into consideration to draw up this list. The revised list of PCIs and the delegated act procedure are available at the following address: https://goo.gl/eT7bbX . (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)