Jordan and Syria agreed to reboot an electrical interconnection line between the two countries as the first step to provide Lebanon with part of its electricity needs. This was announced Wednesday during a meeting that brought together the ministers of energy in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
The ministers agreed on an action plan and a timetable to restart the Jordan-Syria power line. They also agreed to press ahead with all technical studies and the agreements needed to put the project into gear.
The meeting brought together the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Hala Zawati, the Lebanese Minister of Energy and Water, Walid Fayyad, and the Syrian Electricity Minister, Ghassan al-Zamil.
Zawati told reporters that the meeting mainly aimed to set a clear, specific action plan and timetable to supply Lebanon with Jordanian electricity through the Syrian electrical grid by rebooting the existing electrical interconnection lines between the three networks to meet part of Lebanon’s electricity needs.
The move comes under the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah II to support the Lebanese people in overcoming the obstacles they face in the energy sector. Recently, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon held meetings to discuss delivering Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon, thereby reducing the costs of power generation.
A meeting that brought together technicians and stakeholders in the electricity transmission companies from the three countries was held yesterday to prepare for today’s ministerial meeting. Technicians and stakeholders discussed the state of electricity networks in the three countries and pinpointed the technical and commercial requirements necessary to supply Lebanon with electricity.
According to Zawati, expert technical teams were formed to set a plan and timetable within a specific period, noting that the action plan focused on rehabilitating Syria’s infrastructure.
For his part, al-Zamil said that Syria, coming from the spirit of brotherhood and cooperation, acted immediately to take all measures to supply electricity to Lebanon from Jordan using the Syrian network.
Syria’s Public Establishment for Transmission and Distribution of Electricity, al-Zamil noted, has held workshops to reconstruct the electrical interconnection line that, which, he said, “was destroyed by armed terrorist gangs and to secure the necessary materials despite an unjust siege imposed on the Syrian people.”
“We have also started gathering the necessary information about the generation plants, which will be sent to Jordan to conduct the necessary technical studies for a synchronous connection between the Syrian and Jordanian networks,” the Syrian minister said, noting that this would take about three months, during which Syria would have fully rehabilitated the interconnection line.
In turn, the Lebanese minister said that today’s meeting highlights the strength of relations with Jordan and Syria and aims to enhance energy security in Lebanon and the Arab region by achieving stability in the energy sector.
The three ministers, he added, agreed on a roadmap to overcome technical obstacles, pointing out that the next step for Lebanon is secure funding through the World Bank.
In 2001, Jordan and Syria were connected through a 400 kilovolt amperes (kVA) transmission line, however, in the mid-2012 the interconnection line went out of service. Syria and Lebanon are also connected through several interconnection lines on 400, 230 and 66 kVA.
The three countries are linked together by a general exchange agreement and a general interconnection agreement within the eight electrical interconnection group, which includes Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya and Turkey.
Source: Jordan News Agency