Interconnections of power systems offer significant technical, economic and environmental advantages, such as power exchange, sharing of spinning reserve, use of most environmentally friendly and economic energy resources, and energy market integration.
State-of-the-art technology for bulk power transfer between two systems is high-voltage direct-current transmission.
HVDC link between Slovenia and Italy may provide various operational and socio-economic gains. Increased cross-border transmission capacity, more flexible ancillary services, higher reliability and security of power supply, integration of additional renewable energy sources and stronger regional electricity market are only some of the impacts an HVDC interconnector might have on the partner countries. At the same time, such an interconnection could introduce new operational challenges and raises several issues related to technological, economic and social benefits, which need to be properly considered and analyzed.
In 2019/2020 ELES will perform a technical, economic and social pre-feasibility study for the Slovenia-Italy HVDC interconnection to identify potential benefits to the company, local and regional community, and other project-related opportunities and challenges.
The project is included in the list of European Projects of Common Interest (PCI) under the Directive EU 347/2013 with the PROJECT number 3.21. Company’s Projects of Common Interest are highlighted in the Slovenian network development plan.
Study and validation of the optimal technologies for submarine/terrestrial line HVDC Slovenia-Italy performed in the period from 2014 to 2016 was co-financed by the European Commission from Connecting Europe Facility funds.
More on the Project is available on the PCI internet portal. (web link 1, web link 2)
Route
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