€45 M for Tunisia-Italy interconnection project
The EBRD has announced it will provide a €45 million financing package to STEG for the construction of a 200 km interconnector between Tunisia and Italy.
Italy/Tunisia: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has announced it will provide a €45 million financing package to Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz (STEG) for the construction of a 200 km interconnector between Tunisia and Italy. This will assist STEG in financing the construction of the ELMED project, a 600 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 by STEG, Tunisia’s state-owned national electricity and gas utility company and TERNA, the Italian transmission system operator. The EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) will provide an investment grant of €307.6 million.
The financing is dedicated to the construction of ELMED on the Tunisian side and forms part of a €125 million loan package co-financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). The World Bank is meanwhile 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 interconnector. It also aims to promote the development of a decarbonisation roadmap for Tunisia’s energy sector, ensuring its alignment with the Paris Agreement. The roadmap will also 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.
Source: Zawya
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