Viking link: the largest electric cable in the world is about to come into action
Viking Link, the world's largest interconnector, linking the electricity grids of Denmark and the United Kingdom via a 765km undersea cable, is about to go live . The interconnector will come into operation at a reduced capacity and will end up powering 1.4 million homes in the UK.
Interconnectors make it possible to quickly overcome fluctuations in supply and demand in an electricity grid. They are especially important in a world where energy comes from renewable sources and is produced intermittently. For this reason, the EU expects them to play a crucial role in the region's energy security in the future.
The UK has so far built six interconnectors linking its mainland to the energy networks of countries such as France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. The largest interconnector, Viking Link, is being built between the UK and Denmark and was completed in July this year.
Viking Link highlights
The Viking Link project is a collaboration between the UK's National Grid and Danish system operator Energinet. The project, worth two billion euros, kicked off in December 2015 with over three million man hours invested in the planning and execution of the project.
Construction of the interconnector began in 2019 with the laying of a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable made of copper, steel, paper and plastic on the seabed. The cable crosses four economic zones in Dutch, German, Danish and British waters and over 40 lines carrying gas and electricity connections.
The project stretches from Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire to Jutland in Denmark, with pairs of cables running underground to connect to existing substations in both countries. Direct current to alternating current (AC) electricity conversion stations will also be installed near the substations.
Reduced capacity operations
The Viking Link interconnector was designed for a capacity of 1,400 MW, but will go live on December 29 with a much reduced capacity of 800 MW . Energinet confirmed. This is due to the failure to develop West Jutland's high-voltage grid to its planned capacity so far.
The Viking Link project had been planned with the inclusion of the West Jutland grid in mind and was expected to be upgraded to 400kV high-voltage capacity in 2015. While work on the interconnector began in 2019, the substation upgrade is underwent a more stringent environmental permitting process, which it received only recently.
Although the operation of the Viking Link project depends on the West Jutland substation, the modernization work there could not be completed in the same time frame as the laying of the interconnector.
Using the grid in its current state to operate Viking Link at full capacity could risk overloading the plant and jeopardizing the region's electricity supply. So, although Danish renewable energy projects have the capacity to power 1.4 million UK homes with clean, green energy, far fewer people will benefit from the interconnector for the time being. However, it is expected that the entire connection system will be completed within a couple of years.
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The article Viking link: the world's largest power cable is about to come into action comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/viking-link-il-piu-grande-cavo-elettrico-al-mondo-sta-per-entrare-in-azione/ on Tue, 19 Dec 2023 12:21:19 +0000.