National Grid has begun energising the new IFA2 interconnector built in partnership with the French transmission system operator RTE.
The 1GW high voltage direct current cable runs 149 miles along the seabed from Portsmouth in Hampshire to near Caen in Normandy. National Grid said the £700 million project has remained on time and on budget despite the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng will make a site visit today (15 October) as the cable is energised for testing.
The commissioning of the link will bring Britain’s electricity interconnector capacity to 4GW across four cables. It is Britain’s second electricity interconnector with France after the original 2GW Interconnexion France-Angleterre (IFA) opened in 1986.
Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Grid Ventures, said: “While the world is focused on the pandemic and managing the knock-on effects on our lives, we know that progress towards net zero can’t afford to falter and Britain needs to keep up the momentum in reducing harmful carbon emissions.
“The launch of the IFA2 interconnector, linking France and Britain’s power grids, is an important step in accelerating our progress to a cleaner, greener future.”
Meanwhile, Cornwall Insight has suggested Great Britain may become a net exporter of power by the 2040 as growing interconnector capacity allows excess wind generation to be consumed in neighbouring countries.
“Interconnection between GB and the EU is set to grow dramatically; we could see an effective doubling of current interconnector capacity in a little over three years with new connections to France, Denmark and Norway,” said James Brabben, wholesale manager at the consultancy.
“Growth is not limited there and could extend further, with the current National Grid interconnector register showing up to 16GW of interconnection could be operational by 2025 and up to 25.4GW by 2030.”
Source: Cornwall Insight
Brabben said it would represent a role reversal when compared to the last decade: “GB’s comparative advantage for offshore wind resources supports a vast build-out of the technology and could see greater flows of power to Europe as a result.
“Increased interconnection would help facilitate this cheaper power moving to European markets. This could potentially limit the incidences of negative pricing and network constraint payments if the power can flow elsewhere.”