The President of Egypt El-Sisi and “Copelouzos Group” discussed the implementation of the Egyptian-Greek electricity connection GREGY

The President of Egypt El-Sisi and “Copelouzos Group” discussed the implementation of the Egyptian-Greek electricity connection GREGY

By
DIANA ZAYKOVA

A highlight of the talks was the agreement reached to continue the ongoing studies related to the cooperation with the Copelouzos Group to develop projects for the production and transmission of clean energy from Egypt to Europe via Greece.

Photo: Office of the President of Egypt

The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, met with the CEO and founder of the Greek Copelouzos Group, Dimitris Copelouzos, to discuss the implementation of the Egypt-Greece electricity connection, which will improve energy connectivity and diversification in the region.

The Egypt-Greece electricity link, also known as the GREGY interconnector, will bring clean electricity produced in Egypt and other African countries to Europe via undersea cables using wind and solar farms. The total length of the project reaches an impressive 1373 km.

The meeting was also attended by the Prime Minister of Egypt, Mustafa Madbouli Ph.D., the Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, Prof. Mohamed Shaker Ph.D., as well as a number of “Copelouzos Group” representatives.

The spokesman of the presidency, Ahmed Fahmi, announced that during the meeting, the possibilities of cooperation with the Greek group for the implementation of projects for the production of electricity from renewable energy sources in Egypt and their transmission to Europe through Greece with the help of the electrical interconnector between the two countries were discussed. This will maximize the benefits of the modern infrastructure that Egypt has created and developed in the field of electricity in recent years, in addition to the natural resources that the country has at its disposal, such as wind and solar energy sources.

A highlight of the talks was the agreement reached to continue the ongoing studies related to the cooperation with the Copelouzos Group to develop projects for the production and transmission of clean energy from Egypt to Europe via Greece. This consolidates Egypt's position as a regional center for trade with all types of energy.

The infrastructure project is among the projects of common interest (PCI) of the EU and has been identified as a key priority for improving the connectivity of energy system infrastructure within the European Union.

Editor's note: The blacksea-caspia editors consider the claim that the GREGY project has been accepted as a project of common EU interest to be inaccurate and grossly misleading. In October 2021, the European Network of Transmission System Operators (Enrso-E) included the project in its 10-year Plan for the Development of European Energy Networks (TYNDP 2022).

Then the company "Copelouzos Group" commented quite correctly that шге „inclusion in TYNDP 2022 will be the first necessary step that will launch the process of inclusion of this ambitious project in the 6th list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI) of the European Union in the context of the interconnection of the European Energy Networks“.

At least for now, the 5th list of projects of common interest (PCI) of the European Union is in force and the GREGY project cannot be found in it, nor in the list of additions to it. This is quite natural, because as can be seen from the statements of the "Copelouzos Group", they expect the project to be declared as a project of common interest of the EU in the 6th PCI list, which should appear at the earliest at the end of the current year 2023.

The editors of blacksea-caspia retain their reservations regarding some aspects of the GREGY project, mostly related to the extreme proximity of the "Copelouzos Group" and the Russian state gas giant "Gazprom", about which we already wrote on January 31, 2023, in the article "Greece says goodbye to Gazprom with a painful divorce": https://blacksea-caspia.eu/en/greece-says-goodbye-gazprom-painful-divorce .