Italy-France 2020 cross-border electricity capacity to reach 4.35GW

LONDON (ICIS)–A new 1.2GW electricity interconnector between Italy and France has been pushed back from later this year to 2020.

The revised date was published in the latest strategic plan released by Italian grid operator Terna on Thursday and was later confirmed by French counterpart RTE.

The Terna plan, covering the 2019-23 period, said completion of the interconnection, running from Piossasco in Italy to Grand’Ile, will raise transport capacity between the two countries to a maximum of 4.35GW.

Information published previously by both Terna and its French equivalent RTE said the cable was due to start operations at some point this year. However RTE did later point to a reference document on its website that gave the revised date as 2020.

The Italian power market is typically priced above France, so the cable’s commissioning would be expected to marginally lower Italian power prices.

But any price impact from the delay would be negligible. This is because the previous date given by Terna was “before 31 December 2019”, allowing the company room to bring it online at any point before year’s end before it could be termed delayed.

So were it to come online early in 2020, the gap between the previously expected date and the new date would be too small to effect annual products.

In this situation it could in theory be marginally bullish for the Italian Q1 and bearish for the French equivalent.

Full capacity

Currently electricity flows between France and Italy can run at a maximum of 3.15GW. Terna says exchanges run at full capacity most of the time.

The new interconnection consists of two 600MW lines with bidirectional flow.

The cables will stretch 190km – half in each country – and l be hidden underground and in part integrated into existing motorway infrastructure to have minimal impact on the landscape.

The scheme has been included in the EU’s projects of common interest (PCI) list since 2013. It is part of what the PCI list calls the north west electricity corridor.

It will enable Italy to achieve the EU 2020 target of an overall interconnection capacity approaching 10% of installed generation capacity.

A second Italy-France link is also expected online before the end of 2023 – the period covered by the latest strategic plan. An existing 300MW cable connecting the French island of Corsica with the Italian mainland and also Sardinia will be upgraded to 400MW.

As well as being in the plan, the SA.CO.I.3 project is also on the PCI list and is part of the north west corridor. The PCI list puts its commissioning year as 2022.

TSO investment

In its strategic plan for the next five years, Terna will invest a total of €6.2bn. This is the grid operator’s highest ever financial commitment, it said.

Of this amount, over €2bn is related to asset renewal and efficiency, mainly to improve the quality of service and grid digitisation.

Approximately €1bn is for a “defence plan” dedicated to creating and installing devices to increase grid security and stability.