Tunisia sought funds from the European Union to finance an electricity connection project between with Italy called ELMED, as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) , Director General of Electrical Energy and Energy Transition at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy in Tunis, Belhassen Chiboub, told TAP news agency.
At the end of the third training session for journalists in the energy sector, he added that this project, whose investment cost is estimated at 800 million euros, will be operational in 2027.
ELMED, which is managed by a Terna-Steg business partnership, plans to use a 600 MW high-voltage submarine cable between Tunisia (Cap Bon) and Italy (Sicily). It will be part of a Euro-Mediterranean electricity network linking Europe and the countries of North Africa.
This project, once completed, will allow Tunisia to cover its energy needs and export the surplus to the European market, said Chiboub recalling that the World Bank, on September 13, 2018, had approved a loan of 12.5 million dollars for Tunisia to allow the financing of 5 technical feasibility studies of the ELMED project.
With a length of 200 km and completely “invisible”, the work was included in the list of projects of common interest of the European Commission because of its strategic importance for secure and sustainable energy in both countries and for the completion of a European electricity network that connects North African countries with each other and with Europe, in order to achieve full market integration.
TunisianMonitorOnnline
