One of Britain’s biggest power grid projects has awarded contracts worth £1.8bn for a 190km subsea electricity superhighway to bring renewable power from Scotland to the north of England.
National Grid and Scottish Power plan to begin building the “transformative” £2.5bn high-voltage power line along the east coast of the country from East Lothian to County Durham from 2025.
The Eastern Green Link 1 (EGL1) project is one of Britain’s largest grid upgrade projects in generations and has been designed to carry enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 2 million households.
I find it crazy that we have to do an undersea connection for two countries with a 96 mile land border.
Not sure its have to. Vs being cheaper. Lets face it land above sea level has more value to humans then that below.
Placing cables on the sea floor by ship is there fore likely cheaper then building pilons or digging wires via wanted land.
Not to mention the the owner of the under sea land around the UK, is one person. As opposed to negotiating with multiple parties.
From what I’ve read previously, it’s not cheaper in terms of the material cost, but yes, the property rights. Why it’s such an issue at the border, I’m not sure.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The UK is under pressure to deliver a power grid overhaul as it prepares to double its demand for electricity by 2040 as part of a plan to cut the use of gas and other fossil fuels.
The Guardian revealed last month that Britain would need to roll out more than 100km of electric cabling every day until 2040 if the government hoped to power the UK towards its climate goals.
The International Energy Agency has forecast that 600,000km of electric lines will need to be either added or upgraded across the UK by the end of the next decade to meet its climate targets, amid a global race to secure supplies of high voltage cabling and other electrical infrastructure components.
The contract to supply two HVDC converter stations, one at each end of the cable, has been awarded to GE Vernova and Mytilineos.
The next government will need to balance the strong local opposition to new grid infrastructure across rural areas of the UK against the climate and economic benefits of the work.
He added: “These contract announcements are big wins for the supply chain and another important milestone as we build the new network infrastructure to help the UK meet its net zero and energy security ambitions.”
The original article contains 469 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
