Member States Approve EC’s €150 million Plan for Energy Infrastructure Projects

Member States agreed on the Commission’s proposal to allocate €150 million to key trans-European energy infrastructure projects, confirming once more a strong focus on Bulgaria.

In total, 20 projects were selected following a call for proposals under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), an EU funding programme for infrastructure. Of the 20 projects, 17 relates to studies and 3 to construction works. The majority of the funds and the projects are in the gas sector (11 projects for financial aid worth €80 million) and the remaining 9 projects, worth €70 million, are in the energy sector.  

‘In the gas sector, the allocated grants will cover, amongst others, studies for the Chiren underground storage expansion project in Bulgaria and works on the interconnection between Poland and the Czech Republic’ reads the note released by the European Commission on Tuesday.  

Funds will be also meant to promote innovation, specifically to improve practices of odorising gas in the transmission system, and solutions to to allow bidirectional flows on a major north-south pipeline in Germany.

‘Under the first CEF Energy 2015 call for proposals, 23 eligible proposals were received, requesting, in total, €216 million of financial support. Proposals that were not selected under the first call may apply for funding again under the second call for proposals, which was launched on 30 June with an indicative budget of €550 million. The deadline to submit applications is 30 September 2015’ the note explains. 

In the electricity sector, there are studies for the Celtic interconnector to link France and Ireland, the construction of a transmission line between Bulgaria and Greece, and the construction of the Lithuanian part of the Litpol Link.