The leaders of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary finalized an agreement on the construction of an undersea electricity interconnection that could become a new source of electricity for the European Union amid energy supply shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.
The agreement envisages the construction of a cable running beneath the Black Sea that would link Azerbaijan to Hungary via Georgia and Romania. The deal comes as Hungary, which has lobbied heavily against EU sanctions on Russia for its war in Ukraine, is seeking additional energy sources to reduce its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Azerbaijan plans to export electricity from offshore wind farms to Europe via Georgia, a cable beneath the Black Sea, and then to Romania and Hungary. The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said that the agreement between the four nations will provide the financial and technical framework for the undersea electricity cable project. The project will aim to diversify energy supplies and increase regional energy security.
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said earlier that Azerbaijan would soon produce large quantities of green electricity with offshore wind farms, and that by signing the interconnector project which could bring that energy to Europe, Hungary was fulfilling a requirement that two EU member nations participate in order for the investment to receive funding from the bloc. He said the project could be completed within three or four years, and that it would be a major step toward diversifying energy supplies and meeting carbon neutrality targets.
The submarine cable under the Black Sea, designed for 500 kV in double circuit, would have a total length of 1,100 kilometers and would connect the Anaklia substation in Georgia and Constanta Sud in Romania. The expected electricity transmission capacity will be 1,000 MW.
