The European Commission has decided to co-finance business and feasibility studies for two gas interconnector projects: Poland-Slovakia and Poland-Czech Republic.
The Poland-Slovakia project to be co-financed by the Commission comprises two activities: defining the business case for the project and carrying out a feasibility study. The beneficiaries of funds are Gaz-System and Eustream, i.e. the Polish and Slovak transmission system operators, respectively.
As regards the Poland-Czech interconnector, the co-financing will support pre-investment analyses aimed at increasing the transmission capacity between the two countries. As part of the project, the Polish partner is to develop technical documentation and the Environmental Impact Assesment (EIA) for the Zdzieszowice-Wrocław gas pipeline which is required for the Polish transmission system to handle the increased gas flows following the capacity expansion of the Poland-Czech Republic Interconnector. The goal of the expansion is to achieve a substantial increase of the gas transmission capacity from the current level of 0.5bcm per year. Besides Gaz-System, the funding will be allocated to the Czech transmission system operator NET4GAS, which is also involved in projects aimed at strengthening its domestic transmission capabilities.
The support for the pre-feasibility study and business case definition for the Poland-Slovakia interconnector amounts to €210,000 (halved between Gaz-system and Eustream), while €2.3m was allocated to the Polish-Czech project, with Gaz-System due to receive approx. €1.42m. These funds will be sourced from the EU's Trans-European Energy Network (TEN-E) programme.