£3.4bn approved for ‘electricity superhighway’ between Scotland and Yorkshire

Energy company regulator, Ofgem, has given the green light to a £3.4bn funding package to build a proposed new subsea “superhighway”.

This will comprise an underground cable between Scotland and Yorkshire to power up to two million homes across Britain.

Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) is the first of 26 projects to complete Ofgem’s new fast-track process to speed up sign-offs by up to two years under the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment programme (ASTI).

EGL2 will deliver a 2GW high voltage electricity cable link between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and a new converter station at Drax in North Yorkshire, which will help harness the potential of British offshore wind power.

Most of the cable (around 436km) will be under the North Sea from Sandshore Bay to Wilsthorpe, Yorkshire.

The remaining 70km will be buried underground onshore to converter stations at either end of the cable to plug into the national grid and from there on to consumers in Yorkshire.

It is a joint venture between National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) and SSEN Transmission – expected to be the largest single investment in electricity transmission infrastructure in Britain to date.

Full construction is expected to begin later this year and the link will be operational in 2029.

This is described as a big step towards the new Government’s target of reducing Britain’s reliance on volatile international gas markets with cleaner, cheaper, more secure wind energy.

Jonathan Brearley, Ofgem CEO, said: “Ofgem is fully committed to supporting the Government to meet its aims of getting clean power by 2030.

“Today’s announcement is a further step in putting the regulatory systems and processes in place to speed up network regulation to achieve its aim.

“ASTI accelerates approval times for projects such as EGL2 by up to two years. Streamlining the process does not mean blank cheques for developers as we are able to step in and make financial adjustments to maximise efficiency and consumer benefit.” 

Ofgem has also today published an update on another ASTI project called Yorkshire Green Energy Enablement.

It has confirmed a proposed funding allowance of £294.8m for this scheme, which involves a proposed upgrade to the local electricity network to help transport energy generated by Scottish and North Sea windfarms to consumers.

Plans include building new substations, underground cables, over seven kilometres of overhead lines and cable sealing end compounds (where underground cables meet overhead lines).

Ofgem’s proposed funding allowance is now subject to consultation with the project currently slated to be operational by 2027.