July 27 (SeeNews) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said on Thursday it is considering lending up to 80 million euro ($93 million) to Moldova to help the country develop its electricity interconnection with neighbouring Romania.
If granted, the senior loan will be onlent to state-owned single power transmission system operator Moldelectrica for the construction, equipment and placing into operation of a back-to-back High Voltage DC (HVDC) converter substation in Vulcanesti to allow the connection with Romania's electricity system, a 400kV transmission line between Vulcanesti and Chisinau, and the extension of Vulcanesti and Chisinau substations.
The transaction is part of an up to 270 million euro financing package to be provided jointly with the European Investment Bank, the World Bank and the European Commission Neighbourhood Investment Facility.
The project has passed concept review and is currently pending final review.
Moldova meets around 80% of its electricity needs through imports. The project aims at assisting Moldova to diversify its supply of electricity and strengthen the domestic transmission network, in particular in order to allow for integration with the European Network of Transmission System Operators of Electricity (ENTSO-E) network in the long run, EBRD said.
The project will enable Moldova to import additional energy from the ENTSO-E network.
Moldelectrica was created as a result of the unbundling of the generation, distribution and transmission assets of the state-owned company Moldenergo into three separate companies in 1997 and the subsequent reorganisation of unbundled company Moldtranselectro in 2000.
The EBRD is the largest institutional investor in Moldova. Since the start of its operations in the country, the bank has invested over 1.1 billion euro in more than 110 projects in Moldova’s financial, agribusiness, energy, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors.
($=0.8602 euro)