UK’s Ofgem gives licenses for multi-purpose interconnectors linking to the EU

UK energy market regulator Ofgem has granted electricity interconnector licenses for two energy links that will connect the UK with two EU countries.

Ofgem announced that it had on 12 July granted electricity interconnector licenses for the LionLink multi-purpose interconnector that will connect the UK with the Netherlands and for the Nautilus interconnector that will connect to Belgium.

The licenses authorize the parties to operate the electricity interconnectors and are not authorizations to construct the projects as this is subject to separate planning processes including obtaining any consents or permits required from relevant authorities.

In addition, this does not represent an authorization to operate the interconnectors under any specific regime, i.e. merchant-exempt route or the cap and floor regime.

The Netherlands and the UK in April unveiled their plan to build LionLink – what they say would be the first-of-its-kind electricity link to connect offshore wind between the two countries via interconnections.

The project, being developed by the Dutch TenneT and UK’s National Grid, will connect a Dutch offshore wind farm with a capacity of 2 GW to both countries via subsea interconnectors.

Developed by National Grid Ventures, the multi-purpose interconnector Nautilus proposes to connect up to 1.4 GW of offshore wind to the UK and Belgium through subsea electricity cables. By combining offshore wind generation with interconnector capacity between the UK and Belgium, approximately 1.4 million UK homes could be powered.

Earlier this year, Ofgem granted electricity interconnector licenses for four energy links that will connect the UK with four countries in the European Union.

The UK energy market regulator also made a decision that all electricity interconnector projects that had submitted applications in its third cap and floor window would progress to the next phase.