Prysmian Group has been awarded a new contract worth approximately €400 million, in relation to the "MON.ITA." project for a new submarine power link between Montenegro and Italy, following the public tender issued by Terna Rete Italia, S.p.A. (a company entirely owned by Terna S.p.A.).
The project involves supply and installation of one of the two poles of the interconnection (about 415 km of submarine route at depths of up to 1200 m) made of an extra high voltage direct current (500-kV) subsea cable system with a rated power of 1000 MW, as well as specialist civil works both in Italy and in Montenegro. Prysmian will also supply and install the marine electrodes to enable the system’s emergency operation.
"It’s a source of great satisfaction to be involved in the realization of an infrastructure of such great strategic importance not only for our own country but for Europe itself," said Valerio Battista, CEO of Prysmian Group. “The track record of projects carried out and on-going, further confirms our leading role in the development of interconnections for increasingly efficient and sustainable power transmission grids in Europe and worldwide. With MON.ITA we consolidate our technological and market leadership and our order portfolio increases to more than €2.5 billion.”
In the Mediterranean Prysmian has carried out (or is currently carrying out) projects like the Italy-Greece interconnection, SA.PE.I. (Sardinia to Italy mainland) and Sorgente-Rizziconi (Sicily to Calabria) in Italy, Spain-Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula-Majorca in Spain. Worldwide submarine cable links to highlight are the record Western HVDC Link project in Britain, Basslink in Australia, Neptune and Hudson in New York, Transbay in San Francisco and eventually GCCIA and Doha Bay in the Middle East and the interconnection across the Dardanelles in Turkey. In addition the Group is strongly involved also in the grid connection of off-shore wind farm in the North Sea.
The cables for the MON.ITA link will be manufactured in the Arco Felice plant (Naples), the Group's center of technological and manufacturing excellence, development of which has seen the investment of €40 million in 2012 alone. Marine cable laying will be performed by the "Giulio Verne" cable-laying vessel.
The "MON.ITA" project will also enhance Prysmian's unique track record in the field of deep-water cable systems, which already includes SA.PE.I. (with a record maximum depth of 1650 m), the link between Majorca and the Iberian Peninsula (with a maximum depth of 1400 m) and the Italy-Greece link (with a max. depth of 1000 m).
The new “MON.ITA” will link the Balkans and Italy across the Adriatic, thus contributing to increase the integration with the other European countries. In Europe, Prysmian is actively engaged in initiatives for the future development of power grids, such as "Friends of the Supergrid" - to promote a new concept pan-European power supergrid - and Medgrid - to develop a subsea transmission grid that will transport renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. The Group has recently co-founded Norstec, an association of the key players in the global energy sector, whose aim is to support the production of renewable energy by offshore wind farms in the North Sea.
