Europe wants to be energy independent, ensuring that its suppliers are not caught off guard, as happened recently. To speed up this process, it has already been agreed to join Egypt via a 1,000 km cable.
Egypt aims to be a center for exporting renewable energy or green hydrogen. In fact, the conditions and location make it the center of many projects, including one that Europe will also sign.
Belgian company Jan de Nul It confirmed this week that it had signed a “historic agreement” with Egypt to begin studying the construction of a cable that will transmit more than 2 gigawatts of solar and wind energy from Egypt to Europe over a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. According to the company, North Africa has the largest solar energy potential in the world.
Europe is communicating with Egypt towards energy independence
The European Commission has described the cable as a "flagship project" because it will help Europe in its efforts to wean off Russian gas as well as meet emissions reduction targets.
The European Commission includes this project on its list of “projects of interest”, which benefit from faster licensing and financing procedures. However, it still needs to obtain approval from the European Parliament and Council.
This 1,000 km cable will not be the only project linking renewable energy produced in North Africa and Europe. After all, there are already cable connections between Morocco and Spain, and others are scheduled to be established between Tunisia and Italy, and Morocco and the United Kingdom.
Europe and Egypt will be connected via cable, a task that will not be easy, given the depth of up to three kilometers and the challenges that building a ship capable of laying cables (twice the size of regular ships) will bring.
The project is scheduled to start in 2027.
