The French-Spanish electrical interconnection is amortized after four years of operation.

Red Eléctrica Española estimates the accumulated savings thanks to the Pyrenean interconnection at up to 528 million euros, which has already allowed for its full amortization.

It was October 2015 when the newly inaugurated electrical interconnection, crossing the Pyrenees and linking Spain and France, began operating. Today, four years after its inauguration, this infrastructure, which connects the towns of Santa Llogaia (Girona) and Baixàs (Roussillon),Spanish Electricity NetworkIt announces that this infrastructure has allowed an accumulated savings of 528 million euros for the state electricity system, allowing it to be amortized just 4 years after its inauguration.

As REE explains, 422 million of these correspond to savings in the day-ahead market, with the remaining 106 million being additional income from congestion rents.

The project, financed equally by Red Eléctrica Española and its French counterpart, Réseau de Transport d’Électricité, represented an investment of €700 million, of which €250 million was provided by European funding. The cost of the project, which the Spanish side considers fully recouped four years later, included burying the entire electrical infrastructure underground through the Pyrenees.

On the other hand, REE also points out that thanks to thisinfrastructureIt has allowed the absolute average difference in electricity prices between the two countries to be reduced by 30% (from €16.72/MWh in 2014 to €11.58/MWh in the first half of 2019), also increasing the revenue of the Spanish electricity system from congestion rents by 55% (from €72 million in 2015 to €112 million in 2018).

Far from the goal of energy exchange

Although this electrical interconnection allowed the energy exchange ratio between the two countries to double, going from 1.4% to 2.8%, these figures are far from the objective acquired with the European Union, by which Spanish electrical interconnectivity should reach 10% by 2020, increasing it to 15% with 2030 as the deadline.