The projects include connections from sites in England to Germany, Wales to the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland to Scotland, as well as new subsea links to several proposed Offshore Hybrid Assets.
The projects are designed to feed energy between sites to further expand the country’s energy capacity — an important move given the UK’s efforts to become a hub for power-intensive infrastructure sites like data centres.
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“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,” said Akshay Kaul, director general for Infrastructure at Ofgem. “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.”
Three of the projects will focus on interconnects from the UK to sites in Europe.
The Tarchon Energy cable spans 610km between East Anglia and Niederlangen, Germany, providing up to 1.4GW of electricity.
A further 190km of subsea cable from Mares Connect will run from Bodelwyddan, North Wales to the Republic of Ireland, adding 0.75GW of capacity. LirIC’s 142km cable will run between Kilroot in Northern Ireland to Hunterston in Ayrshire, Scotland, providing a further 0.7GW of capacity.
The other subsea projects focus on extending the UK’s reach to offshore assets link windfarms.
The newly signed-off LionLink will connect Dutch offshore windfarms to the UK grid via an onshore landing point in Suffolk, providing up to 1.8GW of clean electricity
The Nautilus cable, meanwhile, will connect Belgian offshore windfarms to the UK’s energy grid, coming ashore at the Isle of Grain in Kent and providing upto 1.4GW wind power.
“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,” Kaul added.
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