Crete-Attica linkup to cost Greeks extra

Greek consumers will have to shoulder the cost of an extra 356 million euros should the power interconnection between Crete and Attica proceed as a national rather than a European Union-subsidized project, warns EuroAsia.

The consortium that has undertaken the project to connect the power grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece via submarine power cable last week sent a five-page text to Greece’s Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) in the context of the public consultation on the Ten-Year Development Program of the National System for Electrical Energy Transmission (ESMIE) for 2019-28.

EuroAsia disputes RAE’s decision and planning for the Crete-Attica linkup, to be implemented by state-owned power grid operator ADMIE.

The proposed plan “puts the timely and financially efficient implementation of the Crete-Attica interconnection at risk,” warns EuroAsia, which has not ruled out taking the matter to court. On the project’s financing, it adds that ADMIE’s planning creates an additional national project, on top of the Crete-Cyprus-Israel linkup, whose cost of some 1 billion euros will have to be shouldered by Greece in its entirety.