From pv magazine Spain

Earlier this month, EIB President Nadia Calviño announced an agreement to expand the electricity interconnection link between Spain and France. This week, the EIB approved €1.6 billion in financing for the Bay of Biscay electricity interconnection. The funding will be provided through loans to Spain’s electricity transmission operator, Red Eléctrica, and France’s Réseau de transport d’électricité (RTE).

The first tranches of the loans, totaling €1.2 billion, were signed this week at the EIB headquarters in Luxembourg. The financing is in addition to a €578 million grant from the European Union under the Connecting Europe Facility.

The project will connect the two countries’ alternating current systems using a high-voltage direct current submarine link. At each end, converter stations in Cubnezais, France, and Gatika, Spain, will transform the current for integration into the national transmission grids. Last week, Red Eléctrica announced that construction had begun on the underground section of the line on the Spanish side.

The interconnection will consist of four cables, two for each link. The double submarine and underground direct current line will stretch nearly 400 km between the Cubnezais substation near Bordeaux and the Gatika substation near Bilbao. Each end of the link will feature a converter station to convert direct current into alternating current for grid connection.

The link will run between the Gatika substation and the Cubnezais substation. From the Spanish Basque coast to the French Médoc coast, approximately 300 km will be submarine, with a short underground section to bypass the Capbreton submarine canyon.

Planners have said that they plan to minimize the impact of the project on fishing activity.

Cable-laying vessels will place each cable on the seabed. Where possible, the cables will be buried; in areas where the seabed is too hard, they will be covered.

The interconnection is designated as a European Project of Common Interest (PCI). Inelfe, a joint venture between RTE and Red Eléctrica, is developing the project, which will enter service in 2028. Once completed, the project will nearly double electricity exchange capacity between France and Spain to 5 GW.

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