The European Union (EU) is investing €594m in eight cross-border energy infrastructure projects.

Of this, funding for works worth €100m will be awarded to the Gabreta smart grids project (www.gabreta-smartgrids.eu), located between Czechia and Germany. Gabreta, which will allow for the integration of renewable electricity, notably by reducing bottlenecks in connection requests, improving grid controllability and enabling innovative market projects.

The existing Depomures natural gas storage facility (www.depomures.ro/Depomures_PIC_Brochure.pdf) in Romania will receive funding worth €12.77m to increase its working capacity and its daily injection and withdrawal rates. The upgrade of the Depomures storage makes an essential contribution to market integration and natural gas security of supply for Romania and its neighbouring countries by mitigating the lack of storage capacity in a region greatly affected by the gas crisis.

The EU CCS Interconnector, a CO₂ infrastructure project in Gdansk in Poland, and the project to reinforce the Lonny-Achêne-Gramme electricity interconnector between France and Belgium will both be awarded Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding for studies necessary to their implementation, worth €2.54m and €1.22m, respectively.

On top of these projects, a further almost €480m will be awarded to four CO₂ transport and storage projects. They constitute the first building blocks of a future Europe-wide carbon value chain that are scheduled for completion before the end of the decade and are expected to contribute to the EU’s 2030 decarbonisation objectives.

Up to €189m is intended for a CO₂ export hub in the port of Dunkirk in France, called D’Artagnan. The CEF will support the construction of a collecting pipeline and an export terminal to provide industrial sites in the port and its hinterland with a route to export their captured CO₂ to storage sites abroad.

Around €157m will be awarded to CO₂ infrastructure in the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, consisting of an import terminal for the reception of CO₂ from carbon capture sites in various member states and of a 200km undersea trunkline connecting the port to a future CO₂ storage site in a depleted gas field offshore.

Finally, €131m is intended for the Northern Lights initiative, a cross-border project linking CO₂ capture initiatives in several EU member states with a future storage site at sea on the Norwegian continental shelf. The proposed CEF grant will support the expansion of the CO₂ import terminal in Øygarden in Norway and the construction of a 100km offshore pipeline to the storage site.

These announcements follow the European Commission’s call for proposals for projects of common interest (PCIs) in April 2023, the evaluation of applications by the commission and a positive vote by member states on the commission’s proposal in the CEF coordination committee, which took place this month. The formal adoption of the decision will follow in the coming weeks.

Energy infrastructure projects that obtain the PCI status are eligible for a CEF energy grant for studies or for works. To be selected, infrastructure projects must have a cross-border dimension, present overall net benefits for the EU, contribute significantly to sustainability of the energy system, and have positive impacts in terms of market integration, competitiveness or security of supply.

From 2014 to 2020, the CEF allocated €4.6bn to energy studies and works supporting the implementation of 109 PCIs. From 2021 to 2027, €5.9bn is available for CEF energy projects and grants worth a total of €1.66bn have already been awarded.