A 445 km long cable, of which 423 km under the sea and for the land part buried (and not laid), with a diameter of just 15 centimetres. The first electric bridge between Europe and the Balkans, as defined by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, present at the inauguration of the Italy-Montenegro electricity interconnection in Cepagatti (Pescara), it is practically invisible, it will have no impact on the environment and indeed "it will act as an enabler for integrating energy from renewable sources with greater flexibility and safety into the electricity system", as explained by Terna's managing director, Luigi Ferraris.
The latest generation cable has an exchange power of 600 MW (the average requirement of one million people), which could be doubled between now and around 2026 when Terna will add another cable, for a total investment, for the company that manages the electricity infrastructure in Italy and is the first independent operator in Europe for kilometers of lines managed, to 1,1 billion.
"No country is an energy island and this shared work goes in the direction of the European decarbonisation objectives", added Ferraris, who was also keen to specify how this project too saw a "loyal collaboration with local authorities and is able to generate positive effects on the GDP: 80 Italian companies worked on the construction of this Italy-Montenegro interconnection, of which 50 from Abruzzo, with an average daily employment of 100 people, and 44 Montenegrin companies”.
“An important investment with a strong strategic value – reiterated the Head of State Mattarella -, which brings the Balkans closer to Europe and aligns Montenegro with EU standards also in the field of energy and climate, precisely in this phase in which the country, already present in NATO, is a candidate to join the European Union”.
Terna thus continues its commitment to the modernization and sustainability of the electricity grid: the one with Montenegro (whose electricity demand is also expected to increase by 2% per year) it is the 26th interconnection line with foreign countries. To build it, 500 km of underground cables were used, monitoring 700 hectares of seabed, using 15% recycled materials and reusing 80% of the excavated soil.
