The British and Danish power grids have been physically connected for the first time after the final length of cable was laid and joined for the delayed 1.4GW Viking Link interconnector.
Stretching 475 miles between Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire and Jutland in Demark, the subsea cable will become the world’s largest interconnector once it is fully completed by the end of this year.
Construction work on the interconnector began in 2019. The final section was joined by the team on the cable laying vessel Leonardo da Vinci in Danish waters in the North Sea. The complex process, which took several days to complete, involved lifting several sections of cable out of the water to join each of its stands on board the ship.
The £1.7 billion Viking Link project is a joint venture between National Grid and the Danish transmission system operator Energinet.
The project was granted financial support under Ofgem’s cap and floor regime based on a planned operational start date of January 2021, but was delayed by three years due to setbacks in obtaining planning permission and supply constraints in the cable market.
In October 2021, National Grid requested that the start date for the cap and floor agreement be pushed back to January 2024.
However, Ofgem only agreed to postpone the start date by 24 months after concluding that National Grid should have foreseen the supply constraints, which caused two years of the delay and was partly the result of cable demand for its own North Sea Link interconnector with Norway.
Announcing its decision in April, the regulator said National Grid said could have done more to prevent the delays and backdated the beginning of the agreement to January 2023. It means the agreement, which tops up annual revenues if they fall below the ‘floor’ or recovers the excesses if they rise above the ‘cap’, will only be in effect for 24 years rather than the usual 25.
Commenting on the completion of the cable, Rebecca Sedler, managing director for interconnectors at National Grid Ventures, said: “This is a fantastic moment for the UK and Denmark, and a key milestone for the world record project as we join the electricity networks of our two countries for the first time.
“After years of planning and construction work, today’s announcement is testament to the hard work and dedication of our team and our partners on both sides of the connection.”
She continued: “Interconnectors bring huge benefits to the UK, acting as clean energy super-highways, allowing us to move surplus green energy from where it is generated to where it is needed the most. That means that we can import cheaper and cleaner energy from our neighbours when we need it, and vice versa.
“As countries begin to integrate more offshore wind generation into their energy systems, interconnectors will become critical for transporting clean and green energy and helping to manage the intermittent nature of renewable sources.”
National Grid Ventures currently has five operational interconnectors joining the UK with France (IFA and IFA2), the Netherlands (BritNed), Belgium (Nemo Link) and Norway (North Sea Link).
The company recently announced plans to build two multi-purpose interconnectors with the Netherlands and Belgium. The 1.8GW LionLink (formerly EuroLink) and 1.4GW Nautilus interconnectors would be connected to offshore wind farms along their route, enabling the turbines to export power in either direction.
In December, Ofgem gave approval for the projects to become the first two to participant in its multi-purpose interconnector pilot scheme, and earlier this week, the regulator granted interconnector licences to the National Grid subsidiaries developing them.