PHOTO
Photo used for illustrative purpose only. Power lines silhouetted in the setting sun, Jutland, Denmark.
(Headline corrected to Euro from US Dollar)
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced on Friday that it is providing a €45 million financing package to Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz (STEG) for the construction of a 200-km electricity interconnector between Tunisia and Italy.
The package will assist STEG in financing the construction of the ELMED project, a 600 megawatts (MW) High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) submarine power cable connecting the Tunisian and Italian electricity transmission grids by 2028.
The €920 million ELMED will be implemented jointly by STEG, Tunisia’s state-owned national electricity and gas utility company and TERNA, the Italian transmission system operator.
European Union’s (EU) Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) will provide an investment grant of €307.6 million for the project, EBRD said in a press statement.
The EBRD’s financing is dedicated to the construction of ELMED on the Tunisian side and is part of a €125 million loan package co-financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW).
In addition, the World Bank is financing the converter station and associated transmission infrastructure in Tunisia.
With a €5 million grant from the EU Neighbourhood Investment Platform, the EBRD financing will be accompanied by a comprehensive technical cooperation package for policy dialogue, to support the regulatory setup to operationalise and commercialise the ELMED interconnector.
It will also promote the development of a decarbonisation roadmap for Tunisia’s energy sector, ensuring its alignment with the Paris Agreement. In addition, the roadmap will aim to develop a guarantee-of-origin scheme in Tunisia that will be key to achieving the decarbonisation targets, by building a renewable energy framework in line with the EU regulations.
(Editing by Anoop Menon) (anoop.menon@lseg.com)
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