Thursday, September 19, 2024
EnergyLatestNews

Ofgem funds Anglo-Scottish electricity superhighway

Ofgem’s Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework is fast-tracking 26 major connection projects, including an electricity superhighway, to assist grid capacity and save up to £1.5 billion.

A £3.4 billion funding package has been awarded to build a proposed new subsea and underground 500km cable between Scotland and Yorkshire which could power up to 2million homes.

Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) is the first of 26 projects to complete a fast-track process to secure funding through Ofgem’s new ASTI framework.  EGL2 will deliver a 2GW high voltage electricity ‘superhighway’ cable link between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in North Yorkshire, which will help harness the potential of British offshore wind power.

The framework aims to accelerate the funding process by up to two years, allowing electricity generated by offshore wind to be delivered to British consumers sooner.

Upgrades

The projects are a part of the work to upgrade the energy system and allow more renewable energy to be brought onto the grid. This will help to deliver Government’s goal of clean power by 2030 and reduce our reliance on volatile international gas markets.

ASTI projects will not only help provide millions of consumers with access to homegrown wind energy, but by boosting grid capacity they will deliver an estimated £1.5billion of savings by reducing the need to compensate generators who are currently asked to turn off production, during times of high wind, due to lack of grid capacity.

Ofgem has also announced a proposed funding allowance of £294.8m for another project in its ASTI cohort, the Yorkshire Green Energy Enablement (GREEN) project. The project involves a proposed upgrade to the local electricity network to help transport energy generated by Scottish and North Sea windfarms to consumers.

It has also approved ECF requests for The North London Reinforcement Project, a project which involves replacing existing 275kV overhead lines with higher voltage 400kV overhead lines and the SHET bulk submission for six onshore and two offshore projects to boost electricity transmission capacity to enable more clean energy to be transported.

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. 

“Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) accelerates approval times for projects such as Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) by up to two years. However, 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.” 

Work on the project is expected to begin later this year and to be completed by 2029.

Image from Shutterstock

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