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South-North Corridor GRIP 2017
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Finally, the progressive expiration of long-term take-or-pay contracts and the
increased interconnectivity level between hubs are likely to cause gas flow
dynamics to become increasingly unpredictable and multi-directional. Flow
reversals and shifts in flow patterns will be likely in the future, following price
spreads signals, and a truly interconnected European gas grid should be able
to promptly react. The South-North Corridor reverse flow projects enhance the
interconnectivity of the European gas network, making possible a full-directional
connection of the main European gas hubs currently still missing for the
completion of the internal gas market. The South-North Corridor will make it
possible to exploit also seasonal or just temporary supply-demand equilibria
gaps providing the opportunities to ship gas in a bi-directional way from
Northern to Southern Europe and vice versa.
Currently, along the gas transmission route between the United Kingdom and Italy,
only the UK Interconnector pipeline and the network in Belgium can accommodate
gas flows in both directions. The TENP and Transitgas systems in Germany and
Switzerland can move physical flows from north to south only, while the route from
France to Switzerland and Italy is also only from north to south. The Italian network
to date can offer only small amounts of technical capacity in an exit direction along
the Corridor. To exploit the full “South-North Corridor” potential as flexible and
EU-long interconnector and to unleash the above depicted benefits, the projects
described in the following section have therefore to be implemented.
Further considerations supporting the above project rationales can be found in
Chapter 7 “Network Modelling”.Figure 6.2:
South-North Corridor in the context of other major existing, under construction or planned EU import
transmission infrastructure
SNC existing/FID
Existing/FID (other than SNC)
non-FID