Jonathan Leake
Fri, 15 March 2024
Expansion of intercontinental connections could reduce Western dependence on fossil fuels from Russia and the Middle East - Christoffer Hellmann
Britain homes could one day be powered by electricity generated in America under plans to install up to six power cables across the Atlantic.
The cables would stretch roughly 3,500 miles across the ocean, reaching depths of up to 11,000 feet, and carrying power roughly equivalent to several nuclear power stations.
A group of London investors and energy consultants are behind the ambitious scheme, as they claim technological advances in subsea cables could allow the creation of a global “intercontinental grid”.
Simon Ludlam, one of the businessmen backing the project, says such a cable would enable electricity to be traded across the Atlantic, taking advantage of the differences in peak demand as the power line crosses time zones.
“When the sun is high in London, it’d be breakfast time in New York where people could use UK or European power to cook breakfast,” says Ludlam. “And then five hours later, the sun will be high in America, so solar and other power stations there will provide the power for cooking supper in the UK.”
The scheme, which is still in its early stages, is one of several long-distance subsea cable projects that have been prompted by rapid improvements in technology.
The most advanced is the Xlinks project to lay four cables between the UK and a network of wind and solar farms spread across the Sahara desert in Morocco – a distance of 2,400 miles.
Once completed, the scheme is expected to deliver about 3.6 gigawatts (GW) of electricity to the UK’s national grid – equating to about 8pc of total power demand.
Another, on the other side of the world, will see a cable laid from wind farms in Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore, supplying the city-state with low-carbon power.
Saudi Arabia and India are also looking at plans to link the power grids of both countries via subsea cables.
Simon Morrish, chief executive of the Xlinks project, believes long-distance interconnectors will become a key tool in the battle to decarbonise.
“As of today, we are moving energy around via molecules – meaning gas oil products and coal,” he says.
“As we decarbonise, the electricity grid will support more of our transport, heating and other needs. So we’re going to need to move electrons around instead and long-distance interconnectors are the only feasible way to do that.”
He says the prospect of global electricity grids will solve the problem of intermittency among renewables, as you can shift power to areas that are short of solar or wind.
According to Morrish, there are no longer technological barriers to prevent this.
“China’s had 3,000-kilometre links since 2018, at double the voltage that we’re doing,” he says. “It’s just a question of putting all the pieces together.”
However, running a cable across the Atlantic would be the world’s longest and most challenging project to date, with Ludlam recognising the financial and regulatory hurdles in place.
He has, however, pioneered a number of similar smaller projects.
They include ElecLink, the power cable laid through the Channel tunnel, which started operations in 2022. The 1GW cable, which is now operated by the Eurotunnel’s owner Getlink, can support the power needs of up to 1.6 million homes.
Since that success, Ludlam has moved on to become chief executive of MaresConnect, a project to install an interconnector between the UK and Ireland, carrying surplus power from Irish windfarms to the UK.
The scheme is currently being assessed by Ofgem, Britain’s energy regulator.
A transatlantic system would, he warned, need to be built with extra resilience.
“Instead of having just one very large cable, you probably have maybe three sets of two – all of them at two gigawatts,” he says.
“That means the failure of a single cable couldn’t bring the whole system down.”
Ludlam’s colleagues on the project include Laurent Segalen, a Franco-British clean energy investment banker and founder of Megawatt-X, which has overseen more than 15GW of wind and solar transactions over the past eight years.
“Strategically and economically, a transatlantic cable makes a lot of sense,” says Segalen. “It especially makes sense for members of Nato to reinforce each others’ energy supplies.
“It also means we no longer have to buy dirty fossil fuels from Russia and the Middle East.”
The cost of such an ambitious project is uncertain, although current estimates suggest it will be above £20bn but potentially cheaper than the £46bn being spent on Hinkley Point C – Britain’s new nuclear power station.
The idea of laying interconnectors over such long distances would have been unthinkable until the last decade because the electrical resistance inherent in cables would have soaked up too much power over such distances.
In recent years, however, cable makers have improved the quality and size of their systems so that power losses amount to just 3pc for every 1,000km.
The deepest cable currently in operation has been laid at 1610m water depth in the Mediterranean Sea. Another project in the same area is also under construction, with plans to reach 2000m.
One of the world’s leading cable producers is Denmark’s NKT HV Solutions, which sells cables that are being used to build the 160-mile high voltage direct current link between Scotland and Shetland, and a smaller 24-mile link between Guernsey and Jersey in the Channel Isles.
Simone Pagliuca, a director at NKT says a single cable system could now be built with the capacity to carry 2.6GW – equivalent to the entire output of two large power stations.
“Interconnectors are essential components of a dynamic and evolving renewable energy ecosystem,” he says.
“Enabling the transition to a low-carbon future, electrified transportation, and smart city infrastructure – developing and expanding grid connections, along with improving energy system interconnectivity, serve as key enablers for this.”
The UK is fast adopting such technology. Its nine operational interconnectors mean it has become heavily reliant on its European neighbours for electricity. Last year UK consumers paid a record £3.1bn for electricity generated in foreign power stations, according to new government data.
The vast imports of foreign electricity have prompted developers to install another eight subsea cables, two of which have already won initial support from Ofgem.
One of the proposed new links, dubbed LionLink, would stretch from the UK to Holland, connecting North Sea windfarms to the British and Dutch grids.
The other, Tarchon, would create a second electricity link between British and German grids.
A National Grid spokesman said: “Interconnectors play a vital role in the transition to a greener energy system, moving green energy from where it is in abundance to where it is most needed.
“As we deploy more wind power to meet our climate and energy security targets, connections to our neighbouring countries will play a vital role increasing security of supply and reducing prices for consumers.”
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