Dodecanese interconnections

IPTO preparing 2024 tender for Dodecanese islands grid link

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Power grid operator IPTO has begun preparations to launch, later this year, tenders to offer contracts for the development of an electrical grid interconnection linking the Dodecanese islands with the mainland.

These tenders concern the cable sections and two converter stations of the Corinth-Kos interconnection, to serve as the main line linking this group of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea’s southeast with the mainland network.

The link is planned to be developed as a 900-MW High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) connection, the country’s second, following the Crete-Athens link.

Once completed, the Dodecanese islands link will replace six independent grids covering the energy needs of these islands. Besides providing a link to the mainland, the Dodecanese islands grid interconnection will also facilitate greater RES penetration, IPTO has noted.

The project will include two converter stations, one at a location near Corinth, west of Athens, the other on Kos, at the island’s Mastihari area, as well as two subsea HVDC cables covering a total of 380 kilometers.

The operator is currently developing two sections of a grid interconnection for the Cyclades islands, which, once completed, will link all this group of islands with the Greek mainland.

Island grid links result in initial public service savings for 2022

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The public service compensation (YKO) special account, subsidizing higher-cost electricity generation on non-interconnected islands as well electricity costs for low-income households, is expected to end the year with a modest surplus, July’s launch of the Crete-Peloponnese grid interconnection being a key factor, paving the way, in 2022, for reductions of YKO surcharges included in electricity bills, energypress sources have informed.

A precise figure on the extent of the YKO special account surplus for 2021 is expected in October, when the distribution network operator, DEDDIE/HEDNO, managing this account, submits a related report to RAE, the Regulatory Authority for Energy.

As is the case each year, the report will include financial details on the YKO special account for the current year’s first ten-month period as well as the operator’s projections for the final two months.

YKO savings resulting from the Crete-Peloponnese grid interconnection are worth approximately one million euros per day, the overall benefit in 2022 estimated at 380 million euros, power grid operator IPTO informed.

The end of the energy isolation of the Cyclades islands Syros, Paros, Tinos, Mykonos and Naxos has led to YKO savings of approximately 70 million euros per day, IPTO officials added.

Public service compensation account savings are expected to nearly double by 2024, when the fourth phase of the Cyclades grid interconnection is expected to be completed and the Crete-Athens interconnection is scheduled to be launched.

Further ahead, towards the end of the decade, this account’s outlay will be subdued even more when interconnections in the Dodecanese and North Aegean are scheduled to be completed.

 

RES targets, sector investments of €8.5bn at risk, officials warn

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Greece needs to move swiftly to simplify renewable energy licensing procedures, ratify energy storage regulations and push ahead with electricity grid interconnections, especially the Dodecanese project, if RES objectives set for 2020 is are to be met and investments made, two key RES sector associations have stressed.

An objective aiming for RES-generated energy consumption of 40 percent by 2020 will be difficult to achieve, officials of ESIAPE, the Greek Association of Renewable Energy Source Electricity Producers, and ELETAEN, the Greek Wind Energy Association, have highlighted at a news conference.

RES-generated electricity represented 26.5 percent of total consumption in 2018, they noted.

Major bureaucratic issues continue to plague the sector despite significant steps taken both at an international level and locally, through the implementation of new terms, the respective chiefs of ESIAPE and ELETAEN, Giorgos Peristeris and Panagiotis Ladakakos, pointed out.

RES storage and grid interconnections investments worth 8.5 billion euros and planned for over the next five years, according to a related study, are in danger of not been executed, Peristeris warned. These promise to provide a 1.5 percent GDP boost, the ESIAPE president added.