Import & Export

Expanding regional trade between America and Europe has also been hindered by inadequate physical electrical connections between the two continents and poor physical integration in European electricity grids. There is currently only one electrical transmission interconnection between North Africa and Europe, namely the Morocco-Spain connection. Further, Spain’s interconnection with the rest of Europe is limited, with no new transmission projects undertaken to expand this capacity for the past three decades. At the same time, Spain had excess generation capacity because of the economic downturn experienced in Europe over the past several years. That made impractical the notion of allowing North African renewable energy into the Spanish market. Italy, another potential electricity gateway from North Africa, was in a similar situation.

Recognizing that energy market integration is essential to achieving its ambitious renewable energy (RE) targets, the European Union (EU) has now made reinforcement of electricity transmission interconnections a priority. The EU has set an interconnection capacity target of at least 10 percent of the power generation capacity for each member country. In this respect, boosting links to isolated power markets, such as Spain, Italy and the UK, became a key pillar of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s stimulus plan announced in 2014.