ZAGREB (Croatia), February 17 (SeeNews) - The European Union is supporting a joint Slovenian-Croatian smart grid project called Sincro.grid with 40.5 million euro ($43.2 million), the Croatian government said on Friday.

The funds, made available via the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), will support 51% of a project that will lead to more efficient use of the existing electricity transmission grid in both Slovenia and Croatia, the government said in a statement.

In a separate statement, the European Commission said that the project will enable current infrastructure to cope with the uptake of additional renewable energy and result in greater energy security without the need to build new overhead cables.

The project is run by system operators Eles from Slovenia, and HOPS and HEP ODS from Croatia.

($=0.9387 euro)