A £700m ($8.78 m) scheme to build an interconnector between two parts of the UK is in its early stages of development. The transmission license application has just been filed to the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation on 17 May 2023 for a 130 km cable under the Irish Sea.
The benefits would be that the UK grid would be networked with the Irish one, reducing costs and emissions, and aiding the UK's 2050 renewables targets.
Called LirIC, the new interconnector will provide up to 700MW of further capacity between the Irish Integrated Single Energy Market and the UK's wholesale electricity market, allowing power from renewable energy sources to be supplied in both directions.
In a statement, Keith Morrison, LirIC project director, Transmission Investment said, “The application for a Transmission License is an early milestone in a long process, but it‘s significant in that it moves us one stage closer towards delivering this very exciting project.”
Morrison continued: “LirlC will increase the opportunities for home-grown renewables to export power to other markets, reduce the curtailment of wind generators, lower the wholesale power price in wholesale markets, which on average is forecast to be higher in Northern Ireland, as well as deliver social economic welfare benefits.”
The privately-financed LirIC will be made up of two converter stations, one located in Northern Ireland and another in Scotland, and an undersea cable of around 130km linking the two. The final route of the cable is yet to be determined.
Morrison continued, “This project will be able to transmit up to 700MW, which is over 40 per cent of the winter peak demand in Northern Ireland,” he said. “LirlC will help reduce Northern Ireland’s carbon emissions, and therefore will directly support the delivery of the national emissions reduction target of net zero by 2050. If all goes well, LirIC will be online around the end of the decade."