M. Manousakis: We need dense networks to achieve the energy transition

The importance of strengthening international interconnections and the country’s historic opportunity to become a strategic energy hub was highlighted by the President and CEO of ADMIE, Mr. Manos Manousakis, during his presentation today at the 26th Economist conference.

Mr. Manousakis pointed out that we need denser networks in order to achieve the energy transition and security of supply in the critical juncture we are going through and emphasized that the Operator is also interested in participating with investments in the new international interconnection projects that are being launched in the wider region of Southeast Europe and of the Mediterranean.

Following are key points of Mr. Manousakis’ speech:

The role of ADMIE is critical for the green transition

We are undoubtedly in a critical period. Nevertheless, we cannot lose sight of the central goal, as dictated by the worsening of the climate crisis we have been experiencing in recent years, which is none other than the green transition. The role of ADMIE in promoting this goal is critical as the networks are the ones that will be able to transfer energy from scattered sources to the System and therefore it is clear that these infrastructures should be multiplied.

ADMIE’s contribution to domestic interconnections has been known in recent years. On this front, the most basic developments of this year are the construction progress of the “big” Crete-Attica interconnection and the completion of the tenders for the interconnection of the Southern Cyclades in the immediate future.

Interest in investment participation in the electrical interconnections of the SE Mediterranean

It is clear that the natural gas price crisis which tends to turn into a fuel supply crisis makes it imperative for Europe to look for alternative sources of energy. This is an opportunity for Greece, which, due to its geographical position, has the potential to become an energy hub of the wider Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in the near future. ADMIE actively supports in this direction.

In October 2021, we entered into a contract providing our expertise to the Greece-Cyprus-Israel Interconnector project with developer Euroasia Interconnector, which we believe was critical for this project to receive in-principle funding approval of 657 million .euro from the Connecting Europe Facility. In the near future we are completing the due diligence and will submit a proposal for our participation as an investor in this project.

During the last year, there is also a very strong political will, as expressed by the signing of the MoU last October between Greece and Egypt, for the electrical interconnection of the two countries. We are in very close cooperation with the Egyptian Bond Manager for the technical and financial maturation of the project, which as it has been decided, will be based on the existing GREGY project proposal of the Kopelouzo Group. In the last visit we had in Cairo we agreed with the Egyptian Administrator that the best solution to finance the project studies is to join REPowerEU so that they can start as soon as possible. ADMIE is also interested in participating as an investment in this project and is already in the initial stages of the due diligence process, in consultation with the Kopelouzou Group and the corresponding Manager in Egypt, which has also expressed interest in its investment participation.

Development of international connections in the Balkans as well

It is very important to create even denser and stronger networks in the Balkans. For this reason ADMIE is strongly interested in investing in the region. In this context, the Operator has already started the construction of the second interconnection with Bulgaria, is jointly studying with the Italian Operator the doubling of the interconnection between the two countries, is also considering doubling the capacity of the existing Greece-Albania interconnection, while expressing the his interest in investing in North Macedonia as well.