HKT HV cables and Prysmian Powerlink have been provisionally awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for a cable submarine between Spain and France via the Bay of Biscay, French network operator RTE said on Friday.
The Inelfe project, a joint venture between the Spanish transmission grid operator Red Eléctrica (BME:REDE) and its French counterpart RTE, consists of two high-voltage direct current lines with a capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW) each.
In addition, the EPC contract for the converter stations was provisionally awarded to the Hitachi consortium (TYO:6501) Energy/Vinci, the grid operator said.
In the coming weeks, the project will start exclusive negotiations with each of the suppliers, with the aim of signing the contracts before May 2023, according to RTE.
Work is expected to begin in late summer.
The award of the contracts followed a joint statement by French and Spanish regulators CRE and CNMC, confirming their interest in the project and offering a new cost assessment worth 2.850 billion euros ($3.020 billion).
A provision for risks of €250 million was added to the cost.
The interconnection was designed to double existing transmission capacity between the countries and would allow Spain to introduce its renewable energy into a wider European grid, which has become increasingly important after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered an energy crisis in Europe last year.
The project raised several disagreements between countries, such as who would bear the additional costs of interconnection, as well as design issues and disputes over other issues that were mixed up in the project.
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