The Pyrenees Virtual Interconnection Point (VIP) — which has the Irun connection in the Basque Country, and the Larrau connection in Navarre — has restored 100% of its availability and maximum natural gas export capacity to France of 265 GWh/day. Today Enagás successfully completed the capacity tests at the Euskadour compressor station in Irún. This came after an incident on February 8th which affected the electrical transformers responsible for powering the facility’s motor compressors.
As a result of this incident, the plant experienced partial unavailability, leading to a reduction in the nominal capacity of the Pyrenees VIP in both flow directions to 195 GWh/day.
On 5th April, repairs were successfully conducted on one of the two electrical transformers, leading to the restoration of the technical nominal capacity of 225 GWh/day. Today, 5 May, both electrical transformers are available and the possibility of offering the additional capacity of 40 GWh/day in the export direction has been restored — in a record time for this type of plant — up to the above-mentioned total of 265 GWh/day, in accordance with the provisions of the Spanish government’s More Energy Security Plan.
Enagás has successfully collaborated with all parties involved to effectively minimise repair times and ensure a constant energy supply.
In April 2023, Spain reached an all-time record in the export of natural gas by pipeline to France. The two VIP Pyrenees interconnections transmitted 6.52 TWh last month. This exceeded the maximum of May 2022, when 5.9 TWh were transmitted via the interconnections with France.
