Georgia, which is a transit country for oil and gas routes, is spearheading efforts to launch a very ambitious project that would create a corridor for green energy from the Caspian to the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), boosting the EU’s diversification efforts.
In Bucharest during Black Sea Energy Week on February 7-9, Zviad Gachechiladze, Member of the Board of Directors at the Georgian State Electrosystem (GSE), the country’s single Electricity Transmission System Operator, presented the development of the Black Sea Submarine Cable Project that will connect Georgia to Europe using green electricity from Georgia as well as wind farms in Azerbaijan.
To link Georgia and Romania, the company would need to develop a special 500 kV DC cable with a capacity of 1,000-1,500 megawatts (MW).
At the same Black Sea energy conference, Romania’s Energy Ministry State Secretary Dan Dragos Dragan told NE Global the submarine electric cable between Georgia and Romania, “is an important project which will bring additional renewable energy sources to the European consumers, and this is only part of the strategy of diversifying the renewable sources and the energy sources that are coming to Europe.”
He explained that the cable would reach Constanta, a major Romanian port on the Black Sea, and from Constanta there will be another project that will bring the electricity from Constanta up to the Hungarian border to facilitate this transfer of electricity from Caspian area to other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. “It will start from Azerbaijan to Georgia undersea on the Black Sea and from Constanta it will be on land and will go up to the Hungarian border,” he said.
Romania’s Energy Ministry State Secretary argued that the Black Sea electric cable could help bring additional electricity to Romania’s neighbours in Moldova and the Western Balkans, and, of course, to Ukraine – it will help start rebuilding Ukraine’s energy system and the reconstruction of the country.
Romania wants to boost its role as a regional energy security provider, Dragan said, adding that his country has been a net exporter of electricity. “We want to boost our investment in all kinds of renewables and, we will continue for bringing also some new flexible and efficient CGTs (combined cycle power plants) to balance the grid in the region and to re-emerge as a net exporter of electricity. Due to very good wind conditions, we succeeded to export these days a lot of volumes to our neighboring countries bringing stability also to countries that are in not very good position right now and here I’m referring to Moldova and Ukraine,” Dragan said.
Source:
https://www.neglobal.eu/georgia-romania-mull-black-sea-energy-submarine-cable-to-cee-europe/
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