Casablanca, 26/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - Taking on board most of the proposals set out in the Green Paper on Energy adopted by the European Commission on 8 March (EUROPE 9146), and thus laying the foundations for a new common energy strategy, the European Council of 23 and 24 March recalled that: - strengthened crossborder electricity links between the EU Member States but also with the neighbouring countries and those of the Mediterranean region in particular, is one of the main elements that will secure energy supplies in Europe. The Euro-Mediterranean electricity link may partly contribute to the integration of electricity markets in the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya) - as well as more to the east in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey - within that of the Union (EUROPE will come back to this).
At the end of June, the second underwater electricity interconnection will come into service between Morocco and Spain (IME-2). It is 29 km long and will cross the Gibraltar Straits carrying 700 to 1400 megawatts (MW) of electrical power between the two countries. This new link will be between the Moroccan electricity power plant in Fardioua and the Spanish plant in Tarifa and will above all require three new power cables and two new telecommunication cables allowing 700 MW to be carried permanently and 900 MW as a boost load over 20 minutes. The new cables have been set up in the corridor of the first Spain-Moroccan connection (operational in 1997) to the west of the existing cables.
On the occasion of a press trip to Morocco organised by the manager of the electricity transport network in France, the RTE, headed by Chairman of the Board André Merlin (present in Casablanca), EUROPE was able to meet several representatives of the Moroccan public electricity company, the Office National de l'électricité, ONE, which signed with the electricity transport network manager in Spain, REE, the contract for IME-2 in December 2003. As stated by the project leader on the Moroccan side, Fatima Mansouri, this project which is in the general interests of Morocco and Spain and more generally of Europe and the Maghreb, aims to achieve several major objectives: - above all, to promote Spanish-Moroccan trade (in 2005, Morocco imported 835 gigawatts (GW) from Spain towards which it exported a little over 48 GW as well as to interlinked countries, to use to benefit the production surpluses likely to be exchanged at an interesting price and in order to make the best possible use of electrical energy production. In response to supply security reasoning, this is also to ensure mutual support between the States in the event of immediate energy need. Finally, the project comes within the European Union's policy to strengthen interlinks, Ms Mansouri said.
ONE and REE each cover half of the cost of the IME-2 project which amounts to €115 million. The Moroccan contribution (€57.5 million) to the underwater interconnection (cables and work at sea) is financed by a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) which gave nearly €120 million to the overall project to double up the Spanish-Moroccan interlink, a project that comprises, moreover, the installation in Morocco of nearly 400 km of 400 kilovolt lines (KV) and 4 transformation posts. In total, the cost of this project, which provides for similar installations in Spain and in which the African Development Bank (ADB) and the Agence française de développement (AFD) have each contributed at 80 and 50 million euros respectively, reaches nearly €250 million.
Finally, coming in a natural environment characterised by a diversity of environmental elements unique to the marine world - in coastal zones, along the shores and in the Straits of Gibraltar - the new underwater link between Morocco and Spain has required environmental impact assessments on both sides of the Straits which then received EIB approval, ONE indicates. Costing around 1.6 million dirham, the impact assessment study on the Moroccan side was accompanied by an environmental and social management plan set in place by ONE and comprising attenuation measures, compensation and accompaniment as well as surveillance programmes and environmental follow-up. To support the financing of the impact assessment on the Spanish side, as well as the underwater study undertaken jointly by ONE and REE (for the sum of EUR 1.25 million), ONE points out that the European Commission has made a donation of €1.27 million directly addressed to its Spanish partner, but that the REE will pay back half to the public electricity company in Morocco to cover costs linked to the environmental impact study and to its participation in the joint studies on the marine depths.