Prysmian Group has been awarded a new contract worth approximately €70 million, for the connection of the island of Capri and Torre Annunziata (Naples), by Terna Rete Italia S.p.A., a company fully owned by Terna S.p.A., the Italian Transmission System Operator. The link is part of a wider scope project planned by Terna and known as "Progetto Insula," to connect the main Italian islands - Sardinia, Sicily, Elba, the islands of the Gulf of Naples, the Venetian Lagoon – to the mainland, with state-of-the art technology submarine cables.
The project involves supply and installation of a High Voltage Alternate Current (HVAC) 150-kV power cable connection comprising of 30 km submarine route and of 1 km of land cable, as well as related network components and specialist civil works on either ends, running from the mainland to Terna’s innovative power station with low environmental impact and sustainable design criteria located in Capri’s Gasto Ecological Island.
The cables for the Capri-Torre Annunziata link will be manufactured in the Arco Felice plant (Naples), the Group's center of technological and manufacturing excellence. Marine cable laying will be performed by the Group’s owned "Giulio Verne" cable-laying vessel. Completion of the project is due by 2015.
"It’s a source of great satisfaction to be involved in the realisation of infrastructure of such great strategic and environmental importance," 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.”
The purpose of this first-ever power link is to strengthen Capri’s entire power system and make it safer and cost-effective. The project will help increase the reliability and security of the power resources of the island with the goal of minimizing risks of blackout, mostly during the summer period when tourism, and therefore also power consumption increase. Strong focus on environment and territory are key features of this zero-impact power link that will allow preserving the immense landscape value of Capri and of the surrounding coast, thus allowing reduction of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere by approximately 130 thousand tons per year.
In the Mediterranean Basin Prysmian has carried out (or is currently carrying out) projects like the MON.ITA (Montenegro – Italy) and the Italy-Greece interconnections, SA.PE.I. (Sardinia to Italy mainland) and Sorgente-Rizziconi (Sicily to Calabria) in Italy; Spain-Morocco, the Iberian Peninsula-Mallorca and the recently-awarded Mallorca-Ibiza in Spain. 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.
