Italian grid operator Terna and Tunisian electricity and gas company STEG have awarded Hitachi Energy a contract worth about $873 million (€770 million) to build converter stations for the Elmed electricity interconnection project between Italy and Tunisia.
The contract award completes the procurement process for the Elmed project, which will be the first high-voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine electricity link between Europe and North Africa.
The converter stations will be built in Partanna in Italy's Sicily region and in Mlaabi on Tunisia's Cape Bon peninsula.
The interconnection will have a capacity of 600 megawatts and extend for about 220 kilometers, mostly via submarine cable, reaching depths of about 800 meters in the Strait of Sicily.
Hitachi Energy's scope includes the HVDC solution, including converter valves, its MACH digital control platform, power transformers and high-voltage switchgear, as well as system studies, design and engineering, supply, installation supervision and commissioning.
D'Agostino Costruzioni Generali and Orascom Construction SAE, which are also part of the consortium, will mainly carry out civil works and electromechanical installations and auxiliary systems for the stations in Partanna and Mlaabi, respectively.
The Elmed project is part of Italy's Mattei Plan for Africa and is aimed at strengthening economic, energy and geopolitical partnerships between Europe and African countries.
The project has a total investment of $1.61 billion (€1.42 billion), of which $348 million (€307 million) has been allocated by the European Commission through the Connecting Europe Facility grant programme managed by CINEA.
According to Terna, this is the first time the European Union has financed a project involving a non-member country.
The project is also supported on the Tunisian side by the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and KfW.