As the ambitious Crete-Attica power cable—an energy project designed to power Greece’s largest island—nears its final stretch toward commercial operation, a tale of Greek bureaucracy is keeping it unplugged.
The Crete-Attica cable is a project of strategic importance, costing 1 billion euros and enduring countless bureaucratic and technical challenges due to its state-of-the-art technology. Once electrified, it is set to secure Crete’s energy supply and reduce electricity bills by 550 million euros in Public Service Obligations charges.
According to sources, just as the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO) was preparing for testing, an unexpected hurdle emerged: the local municipality of the island of Aegina, just an hour from Attica, is blocking the start of tests, effectively keeping the cable offline and threatening to derail the entire project.
For the cable to operate—even in testing mode—two essential connections must be completed with specialized electrical components called electrodes. One of these electrodes is located on the tiny islet of Stachtoroi near Aegina, and the other near Korakia in Crete.
The electrode on Stachtoroi needs to be linked to the medium-voltage grid of the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (HEDNO) in Aegina. IPTO and HEDNO collaborated to lay the necessary cable from Stachtoroi to Aegina, and although all the permits were secured, the local municipality has withheld the final authorization to install a terrestrial cable and two supporting poles required for the connection.
Sources indicate that the Aegina municipality demanded, on aesthetic grounds, that the overhead cable and poles be scrapped. Despite assurances and guarantees from both IPTO and HEDNO that the project poses no issues, the municipality still has not issued the necessary permit.
The situation took another twist as the municipality now requests the installation of a small building instead of poles to house the connection point for the medium-voltage grid.
Without the Stachtoroi-Aegina link, testing the Crete-Attica cable means sending an electrician to the islet to manually start the electrode’s generator. In rough weather, the connection would be entirely inoperable—not just for testing, but for any power transmission.
Source: tovima.com
