In a press release, the ONEE said that after several weeks of work and thanks to the long experience of the Office's and REE's teams, the 2nd interconnection has been restored in very good conditions.

The undersea cable was unavailable since a ship damaged it at the end of 2019, 13 km from the Moroccan coast, the press release said, affirming that the control and protection systems ordered the isolation of the 2nd interconnection and an action plan for repairing the cable which was launched by the maintenance committee made up of Moroccan and Spanish officials.

The repair operation required highly qualified expertise and heavy logistics, mainly special vessels dedicated to this type of operation, since the damage was located at a great depth (490 m), added the same source.

According to the press release, the director general of ONEE Abderrahim El Hafidi paid on Tuesday a technical visit to the site of the Morocco-Spain electricity interconnection, which has a transit capacity of 2 x 700 MW, to learn about the installations after the important works that had been carried out.

El Hafidi, accompanied by senior ONEE officials, checked the operationalization of all the installations of the undersea cable terminal station at Ferdioua (near Ksar Sghir), made up of the 400 kV very high voltage equipment and the hydraulic system for maintaining the dielectric oil in cables under pressure, the press release said.

He went to the large Melloussa substation which ensures interconnection with the national 400 kV transmission network, to also inquire about the smooth running of this strategic facility for the national electrical system. This substation brings together the THT lines of the Morocco-Spain electricity interconnection, the lines coming from the Tahadart power station as well as the 400 kV lines serving the Oualili substation.