Italy, Albania and the United Arab Emirates signed a three-way clean energy cooperation deal on Wednesday.
It calls for the Gulf country’s expertise to be put to use in Albania to produce solar, wind and other renewable energy, some of which would then be transferred to Italy via an underwater cable across the Adriatic Sea.
Albania has been working to increase its renewable energy capacity, upping generation by around 500 MW in the last two years.
The deal will strengthen existing power connections which stretch “430km along the Adriatic seabed, linking Italy to Montenegro and other Balkan regions,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.
Albanian Premier Edi Rama valued the energy deal at around €1 billion and said will be operational within three years. He explained that the deal would see the Albanian port of Vlore connected with the Italian region of Puglia – the narrowest point between the two countries.
Rama added that it will involve Italian grid operator Terna and the UAE National Energy Company.
A ‘balance’ between sustainability and innovation
Meloni said the three-way arrangement would help Italy meet its long-term electricity needs while honouring sustainable energy commitments made at UN climate conferences.
She praised it as a pragmatic way to transition away from fossil fuels at a time when energy needs are soaring due to demand from AI-generated technologies.
“The future of energy transition and digitisation will thus depend on our ability to strike a balance between sustainability and innovation,” Meloni said, adding that nuclear fusion could be another way to produce clean and safe energy.
She acknowledged the unusual nature of the three-way deal, noting the “seemingly distant partners, at least geographically speaking.”
Sharing renewable energy across the Mediterranean
The UAE, a major oil-producing nation, has pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2050 and hosted the COP28 climate summit in 2023.
Sultan al-Jaber, the UAE’s minister of industry and technology, said the deal would help meet the goal of tripling renewable energy.
“By leveraging the UAE’s world-class expertise in renewable energy, Albania’s abundant natural resources, and Italy’s sophisticated energy market, we are connecting nations in far-sighted collaboration for the development and sharing of renewable energy capacity across the Mediterranean,” he said.
Al-Jaber, the chairman of Masdar and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., a state-owned firm producing millions of barrels of crude oil daily, was president of the COP summit.
For the first time, the final deal mentioned fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – as the cause of climate change and said the world needs to be “transitioning away” from them.
