The energy bridge between Italy and the Balkans

Electrical interconnections generate value: for the citizens that benefit from them, the businesses that use electricity from them and the companies that transport the electricity itself. That’s why Terna has made electrical interconnections a central point of its investment plan and increased its expenditure in new power lines to € 6.2 billion (+20%) for the period 2019-2023. Most of this considerable amount will go towards lines to be built in Italy, but a large amount will be used to increase interconnections with neighbouring countries. It’s within this setting that the new “electrical bridge” between Italy and Montenegro should be framed.

Inaugurated on Friday 15 November with the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and the President of Montenegro, Milo Đukanović, the bridge will enter into service by the end of the year, according to current schedules. The infrastructure has been recognised as strategic and included as a Project of Common Interest (PCI) by the European Commission, who financed the feasibility studies as part of the Trans-European Network (TEN), the network of supranational power lines.

Finally, the geopolitical value of the project, which will unite the centre of the European Union with the Balkans for the first and at the same time that Montenegro's entrance into the EU approaches. President Mattarella also highlighted this: “Infrastructural energy grids maintain growth and attract investment. This infrastructure is a crucial step for Italy, for the Balkan area and for Europe,” he said, “because it brings us closer, it makes us feel part of the same picture, it pools our resources and it reinforces shared aspirations”. A collaboration shared by the Italian Minister for Development, Stefano Patuanelli, who also attended the inauguration: “Initiatives like this,” he said, “facilitate the sharing of knowledge between two countries that have shared close relationships for a long time. The steps Montenegro has taken towards integration into the European Union should be helped, supported and facilitated”.

The new power line: facts and figures. It’s an “invisible” power line as most of it is undersea and the remaining segments which emerge on either side of the Adriatic Sea are underground. It will therefore have no environmental impact and “will act as a facilitator for the integration of energy from renewable sources into the electricity system in a more flexible and safe way”, said Terna's CEO Luigi Ferraris, at its inauguration. The new infrastructure which links the Italian coast at Cepagatti, near Pescara, and the Montenegro coast at Lastva, in the municipality of Kotor, will initially have a transport capacity of 600 megawatts in DC, doubling to 1,200 MW at full capacity, presumably by 2026.

A highly sustainable initiative. The new “bridge” will be bi-directional: it will transport electricity from Italy to Montenegro and vice versa. It’s 445 kilometres long, almost all (423 km) under the Adriatic Sea at depths of up to 1,215 metres, a record for high-voltage cables, and the first of this length in Mediterranean waters. The remaining 22 km run underground, 6 km in Montenegro and 16 km in Italy. 500 km of underground cables were used to build it, monitoring 700 hectares of seabed, using 15% recycled materials and reusing 80% of the excavated soil.

The power line is highly sustainable, and was preceded by environmental studies on both the marine and underground habitats. It will therefore have no environmental impact and “will act as a facilitator for the integration of energy from renewable sources into the electricity system in a more flexible and safe way”, said Terna's CEO Luigi Ferraris, at its inauguration. With a total capital expenditure of € 1.1 billion, the initiative has been a long time coming, that is since 2007, when Italy and Montenegro laid the first foundations for the works and signed the first intergovernmental agreement, with a second memorandum which followed in 2010.

Interconnections, advantages for GDP and decarbonisation. The benefits of major electricity interconnection works can be summarised in four essential points:

Reduction in energy prices thanks to market integration makes it possible to import energy at lower prices and make the domestic market more competitive;

Increased system security, with the ability to rely on several production units;

Increased service quality;

Increase penetration of renewable sources on both sides of the border.

“No country is an energy island and this collaboration works in line with European decarbonisation targets,” said Luigi Ferraris, who also highlighted that this initiative has seen “loyal collaboration with local authorities and should create a positive effect in terms of GDP: 80 Italian companies have worked on the construction of this Italy-Montenegro interconnection, of which 50 from Abruzzo, with a daily employment average of 100 people, as well as 44 companies from Montenegro”.

Other cross-border electricity “bridges”. We find ourselves in the midst of the electrical transition from the fossil fuel model to the renewable energy model, making the upgrading of existing interconnections crucial.

The new Italy-Montenegro power line brings the number of cross-border power lines that connect Italy to the rest of the world to 26. The others: 4 with France, 12 with Switzerland, 2 with Austria, 2 with Slovenia, 1 connection with Greece and a dual connection, also known as SA.CO.I., between Corsica and Italy via Sardinia, 1 undersea and underground cable connection with Greece and another with Malta. But all this is not enough. And new connections under construction or in the preliminary phases include: Piossasco-Grand’Ile between Italy and France; Prati di Vizze-Brennero between Italy and Austria; and the Sardinia-Corsica-mainland Italy connection, Sa.Co.I. 3 connections which will renew and modernise the existing one. Finally, the “bridge” between Italy and Tunisia (the Elmed initiative): the Memorandum of Understanding between Terna and Steg was signed in October, consolidating the collaboration between the two groups.