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Italy, Albania, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have signed a historic three-way clean energy cooperation deal aimed at boosting renewable energy production in the Mediterranean region. The agreement, finalized on Wednesday, calls for the UAE to leverage its renewable energy expertise to assist Albania in producing solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy. Some of this energy will be transported to Italy via an underwater cable across the Adriatic Sea. The deal is a significant step in Albania’s ongoing efforts to enhance its renewable energy capacity. Over the past two years, Albania has increased its renewable energy generation by approximately 500 MW. Albanian Premier Edi Rama valued the agreement at around €1 billion, and emphasized that the initiative will be operational within three years. The project will connect the Albanian port of Vlore to the Italian region of Puglia, which lies across the narrowest stretch of the Adriatic Sea. The deal is set to strengthen existing power connections stretching 430 kilometers along the Adriatic seabed, which currently links Italy to Montenegro and other regions in the Balkans. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, speaking at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, highlighted the importance of the deal in ensuring Italy’s long-term electricity needs are met while adhering to sustainable energy commitments. “We are paving the way for a pragmatic energy transition,” Meloni said, noting the deal’s significance in helping Italy reduce dependence on fossil fuels as energy demands rise, partly driven by the rapid growth of AI technologies. Italian grid operator Terna and the UAE National Energy Company will also play key roles in the project’s development. The collaboration aims to balance sustainability with innovation, a sentiment echoed by Meloni, who remarked, “The future of energy transition and digitisation will depend on our ability to strike a balance.” The UAE, a leading oil producer, has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and hosted the COP28 climate summit in 2023. Sultan al-Jaber, the UAE’s Minister of Industry and Technology, highlighted the deal’s contribution to the UAE’s ambitious goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. “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,” al-Jaber said. For the first time, the deal explicitly acknowledged the role of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—in climate change, stressing the need to transition away from these sources to meet global sustainability targets. |
