Yesterday gas transmission system operator Eustream officially completed the project of reverse flow of gas costing over a million euro, with co-financing from the European Union.
The Slovak transmission network is therefore now able to transport natural gas from the Czech Republic and Austria in a west-east direction, thereby diversifying gas supply routes for the needs of the Slovak Republic. The project was part of the initiative that was started back in January 2009 in reaction to a rather costly gas crisis, when Slovakia found itself without supplies of natural gas from the east due to disputes between Ukraine and Russia.
At that time the company managed to implement partial reverse flow from the Czech Republic, but now Eustream has produced a more standard reverse flow solution for operation of all parts of the system, including compressor stations. It is now possible to launch reverse flow without the need for any manual interventions, and Eustream is capable of transporting daily more gas in this way than the peak consumption of Slovakia in the winter months.
This means that the country is no longer dependent on the route from the east and so if the gas crisis is repeated, Slovakia can supplied sufficiently from the west of Europe. The natural gas reverse flow project overseen by the company Eustream received financial support from the European Commission as part of the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR).
The company says the project is beneficial not just for Slovakia, but also in a European context, because it enables the interconnection of European gas networks, thereby increasing the flexibility of their use and contributing to boosting the energy security of the European Union.