ACER publishes annual report on the progress of infrastructure Projects of Common Interest

​ACER published recently its fifth consolidated annual report on the progress of Projects of Common Interest (PCIs) for trans-European Energy Infrastructure in electricity and gas. The report examines how the projects on the third EU list of PCIs (adopted in November 2017) evolved between January 2018 and January 2019.

 
The Agency notes that 23 electricity and 9 gas PCIs advanced their status during the monitored period. The largest share of PCIs (more than 40%) are in the permitting phase, while about 25% of the electricity and 15% of the gas PCIs are under construction or already commissioned. Despite the overall progress, the commissioning dates for almost half of the PCIs have been delayed or postponed on average by 1.5 years compared to the dates foreseen in previously reported schedules, adding up to the accumulated delays that are repeatedly noted in the Agency's annual PCI monitoring reports. The investment costs for the electricity PCIs amount to €49.5 billion, while for the gas PCIs they amount to €42.9 billion. These figures represent an increase of less than 2% for electricity PCIs and a decrease of 1.4% for gas PCIs compared to the expected overall budget of the same projects in 2018. The interest of the promoters to use the array of available regulatory tools in the EU Regulation for trans-European energy infrastructure remained relatively low. The submission of investment requests and the resulting issuing of cross-border cost allocation (CBCA) decisions are the tools most frequently used by the promoters. The actual and planned filing of applications for project specific risk-related incentives occur only in exceptional cases. The report is available here.