With Great Britain expected to be a net exporter of energy by 2030, the greenlit projects will capitalize on the growing amount of homegrown wind power by providing additional channels for exporting in times of energy surplus and importing during times of more limited domestic supply. Two of the projects will also create Great Britain’s first-ever Offshore Hybrid Assets (OHAs), which can directly feed energy generated by offshore wind farms into both our own and European grids.
The new connections will keep consumer costs as low as possible through Ofgem’s cap and floor rules, which limit revenue for interconnectors.
Additionally, the new OHAs will:
- maximize the efficiency of both interconnection and transmission by providing one-stop connections which can transmit electricity from windfarms to grids when they are generating and which can provide more interconnector capacity at other times
- cut down on the footprint of infrastructure needed by combining both interconnection and offshore wind connection into a single asset, thereby reducing community and environmental impacts as well as costs
- make Great Britain a world leader in this emerging new energy technology
Akshay Kaul, Director General for Infrastructure at Ofgem, said: “We’ve carefully assessed all the proposed projects and only approved those ones which deliver for consumers in terms of value, viability and energy security.
“As we shift to a clean power system more reliant on intermittent wind and solar energy, these new connections will help harness the vast potential of the North Sea and play a key role in making our energy supply cheaper and less reliant on volatile foreign gas markets and associated price spikes.
He added: “With Britain expected to become a net energy exporter in the 2030s, these connections will equip us with world-leading technology to export more of our surplus clean power overseas. They will also provide greater access to energy imports, which, together with domestic low carbon energy sources such as nuclear and biomass, will provide vital backup energy sources when renewable generation is more limited here.”
The greenlit new projects are:
Interconnectors:
- Tarchon Energy Interconnector, this 610 km subsea cable between East Anglia and Niederlangen, Germany, would deliver up to 1.4 GW of electricity capacity.
- Mares Connect this 190 km subsea cable between Bodelwyddan, North Wales, to the Republic of Ireland, which will deliver 0.75 GW of additional electricity capacity
- LirIC, this approximately 142 km subsea electricity interconnector between Kilroot in Northern Ireland and Hunterston in Ayrshire, Scotland, will deliver 0.7 GW of additional electricity capacity
OHA (Offshore Hybrid Assets):
- LionLink, this OHA will connect Dutch offshore windfarms to the GB grid with an onshore landing point in Suffolk and provide up to 1.8 GW of clean electricity to each country
- Nautilus, this OHA will connect Belgium’s offshore windfarms to the GB grid, coming ashore at the Isle of Grain in Kent and providing up to 1.4 GW of offshore wind to each country through subsea electricity cables.
The new projects are all expected to be complete and operational by the end of 2032.
