Greece is currently developing three projects intended to connect the country’s electricity network with those in Africa and the Middle East, thus allowing the transfer of green electricity to Europe. However, Greece must accelerate the development of these interconnection projects in order to reap the rewards.
Namely, Italy has recently proposed its electricity connection to Egypt, a submarine transmission cable with the capacity of 2.5 GW, a project worth some 3 billion euros. If Greece does not hurry up, the Europe’s first electricity interconnection with Egypt will go through Italy.
The most mature among Greek projects is the GREGY-Elica interconnector developed by the Copelouzos Group, with an estimated cost of 3.5 billion euros. A 940 kilometers long submarine cable will connect Egypt’s El Sallum area to Nea Makri in Attica, will be able to carry 3 GW of electricity that will be produced from 9.5 GW solar and wind farms to be built by Copelouzos Group in Egypt.
The second project, developed by the Eunice Energy Group, envisages a shorter interconnection from the Mersa Matruh area of Egypt to Crete, with a 400 kilometers long cable. Eunice’s Greece- Africa Power Interconnector (GAP) is designed to carry 2 GW of electricity.
The third interconnection project is designed to transfer electricity that will be produced in Israel and Cyprus. This is the EuroAsia Interconnector, which recently secured financing from the Connecting Europe Facility in the amount of 657 million euros. The project, budgeted at 2.5 billion euros, envisages the construction of a submarine cable with a transmission capacity of 2 GW (1 GW in the first phase) and a total length of approximately 1,200 kilometers. Greek electricity transmission system operator ADMIE is expected to participate in the project with 25 % stake.
