ArmInfo. At the session of working group taken place in Stuttgart experts from Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Iran discussed the current condition of North-South TOR, assuming the interconnection of energy systems of the countries mentioned, energo-news.ru reads
According to the source, the objective of the second joint session of working team was the discussion of the current statusand preliminary report on the project implementation, as well as additional data needed to proceed on various technical and organizational issues. The experts discussed also different issues related to documents development, regulating the planning and management of statuses, technological information exchange and commercial record of electric energy within the framework of energy corridor. The next meeting of experts group is planned for July. The works on North-South energy corridor with a capacity of 1200 mWT started in 2015. In April 2016 the Energy Ministers of four countries signed the road map of the project assuming the joint development of TOR, as well as the memorandum on mutual understanding in the sector of energy. The first working meeting took place in Tbilisi in February 2017.
The project aims to link the power grids of Armenia and Georgia and to promote mutually beneficial regional cooperation within the framework of the Iran-Armenia- Georgia-Russia energy corridor. In addition, the project will create prerequisites for synchronous operation of the electric power networks of the CIS member states. According to FICHTNER, the cost of the project is preliminarily estimated at 326.9 mln EUR. The connection from the Georgian side will be through a 500 kV line from the Marneul substation, and the connection from the Armenian side will be through the 400 kV line from Hrazdan. It was previously reported that the first phase of the project is 105.2 million EUR. Extra 10 million EUR will be lent by the European Investment Bank and another 10 million EUR will be granted by the European Commission. The first phase will be completed in 2018, the second phase worth 100 million EUR will be over in 2021, and the third one worth 125 million EUR - in 2025. At the moment, three power transmission lines connect Armenia and Georgia, namely, Alaverdi-2 (220 kV), Lalvar (110 kV) and Ashotsk (110 kV).