BRUSSELS: The European Union will publish a list of priority energy infrastructure projects on Friday with an emphasis on improving power supplies, better integrating renewable sources and helping Ireland cope with Brexit.

The list, seen by Reuters, comprises 173 projects that will be entitled to accelerated planning permission as well as EU funding. It includes twice as many electricity schemes as gas projects, an EU source said.

It is part of the European Commission’s drive to improve power and gas connections across the EU’s 28 member states by better distributing available supplies, bringing down prices and trying to minimise disruptions.

The list reflects concerns over dependence on Russia, which supplies about a third of the EU’s oil and gas, and how to make the best use of the greater share of power coming from wind and solar energy.

It also aims to address Ireland’s worries about its security of supply after Britain quits the EU in March 2019, leaving Ireland with no electricity links to the bloc. “Only a fully interconnected market will improve Europe’s security of supply and give consumers more choice,” Europe’s climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told Reuters.

“As highways do not stop at national borders, neither should pipes and cables.” Among the projects is a planned subsea cable linking Ireland to France, known as the Celtic Inter­connector, to be built by 2025 by French electricity grid operator RTE and Ireland’s EirGrid.

To address grid bottlenecks in Germany that have overflowed into neighbouring member states, the EU is also promoting the Sudlink between the north and south of the bloc’s biggest economy.

Also listed is a new subsea cable called the COBRAcable — for COpenhagen BRussels Amster­dam — to help spread wind energy generated in De­­nmark. That has received investment from Dutch power grid operator TenneT and Danish counterpart Energinet.dk.

A new electricity link through the Bay of Biscay to nearly double the interconnection capacity between Spain and France is seen as another way of encouraging investment in renewables.

For gas, the EU has spotlighted a new gas pipeline between the two countries, the Midi-Catalonia (Midcat) interconnector.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2017