The cold snap ending just in France has demonstrated how exports and imports of electricity are vital. To meet their current demand, the 65 million French broke records historical consumption last week to more than 100,000 megawatts (MW), of which 8000 MW have been imported.
This is to increase trade in electricity as RTE, the French network, and its Spanish counterpart REE beginning to drill its days of a new tunnel linking France and Spain.
The launch of this project marks the latest episode in a series over several decades. The last line at high voltage (EHV) trans-Pyrenean date thirty years ago. Expected since the 1980s, this binding (THT) was designed to be air. The prospect of the sides of the Pyrenees bristle with towers and cables mobilized a strong opposition that eventually succeed. The project was frozen.
The man who strove to break the deadlock is none other than "Super Mario", the current Prime Minister of Italy Mario Monti, former European Commissioner, says Yves Decoeur, the CEO of INELFE, a joint venture between RTE and REE . Stakeholders have agreed to bury the line THT than 320,000 volts. A green solution which almost tenfold the cost of the line, 80 million euros to 700 million euros.
The European Union, within the dual framework of its program of infrastructure to streamline the energy market and its recovery envelope decided after the 2008 financial crisis, has financed the construction of up to 225 million euros . Added to this a loan of 350 million euros from the European Investment Bank. "In exceptional circumstances, exceptional financing," had justified the commissioner Mario Monti, remembers Yves Decoeur.
World record
Of the 65 miles of new service between Perpignan and Figueres, will be drilled 8.5 kilometers beneath the mountain by two tunnel boring machines, monsters of three hundred meters long each. The rest of the line will be buried 1.5 meters underground through a single trench.
With a capacity of carrying 2000 MW, slightly more than the power of two nuclear reactors at Fessenheim, the line "Baixas-Santa Llogaia" will "break the world record currently held by a line buried in a 400 MW DC United States United, "said Yves Decoeur. The tunneling and burial of 65 km along the line must be completed by mid-2013.
In recent years, the volumes of electricity traded between the two neighboring Pyrenean rose, but crisis requires, they fell in 2010. The balance of trade with Spain was positive for France last year whereas it was negative in 2010. France has bought 3.1 terawatt hours (TWh) and sold 4.5 TWh. RTE said that the volumes and balances vary considerably from one month to another, including depending on the availability of dams in Spain.