GreenSwitch smart grid project to receive €73 million

GreenSwitch is one of eight cross-border energy infrastructure projects being awarded a total of €602 million (US$636 million) from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility.

The eight projects, from the EU’s latest 2021 list of ‘Projects of Common Interest’, are expected to support both the European Green Deal and the more recent REPowerEU initiatives.

GreenSwitch, one of five smart grid projects included in the PCI list, is a cross-border project between Austria, Croatia and Slovenia.

The investment support of €73.1 million ($77 million) is intended to upgrade the electricity grids to allow for the integration of an increasing number of new distributed energy resources, including renewable energy production, heat pumps and electric vehicles, to optimise grid operation via digitalisation and to make full use of complementarities in terms of seasonal loads between the three countries.

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The largest share of the funding, €307.6 million ($325 million), is intended for the construction of the first transmission interconnection between Italy and Tunisia.

The new link, an undersea high voltage electricity cable named the ELMED interconnector, is planned to increase the security and the sustainability of electricity supply in Europe and to allow for better renewable energy integration and the replacement of gas-fired thermal generation.

Another project identified for funding is the Hydroelectric Power Station Silvermines in Ireland, which will receive €4.3 million ($4.5 million) for studies to set up a hydroelectric pumped storage system at a historic mining site.

The goal is to help reduce price volatility, contribute to market stabilisation and increase the flexibility resource of the island’s electricity system.

Two further projects will also receive support to help reduce the dependence on Russian gas supply. One is the underground gas storage facility in Bilciurești in Romania, which is set to receive €38 million for expansion works.

The other is the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Gdansk in Poland, with an allocation of €19.6 million ($21 million). The project is also anticipated to contribute to increasing the availability of LNG for Poland and the wider region.

Three projects concerning carbon capture and storage also are set for funding.

The Antwerp@C CO2 Export Hub will receive €144.6 million ($153 million) to develop the necessary infrastructure in the port of Antwerp to enable industrial users in the area to transport, liquefy and export their emitted CO2 to permanent storage sites.

The Ghent Carbon Hub, also in Belgium, will be awarded €9.6 million for studies aiming for the development of a CO2 liquefaction terminal in Ghent as well as pipelines connecting it to industrial emitters in the region.

The D’Artagnan Dunkirk CO2 Hub in France will receive €5.2 million for infrastructure studies in the Dunkirk harbour to collect CO2 from various emitters and to liquefy it before its export to permanent storage sites.