Eastern Green Links. Eastern Green Links are two planned submarine high voltage direct current power cables from the East coast of Scotland to Northeast England to strengthen the National Grid. The two links combined will deliver 4GW of renewable energy from Scottish wind farms to England.

Ofgem state that "At an estimated cost of £3.4billion for the two links, the Eastern HVDC projects would be the largest electricity transmission investment project in the recent history of Great Britain." They approved the schemes as part of the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment Framework.
 

In July 2022, Ofgem published its conditional decision on the Final needs case for the Eastern HVDC project, confirming its choice of two separate HVDC links, each rated at 2GW.

Scotland-England Green Link 1 (SEGL1)

SEGL1 will run from Torness in Southeast Scotland to Hawthorn Pit substation in Murton, County Durham. Landfall in England will be to the North of Seaham, on the Durham Coast. It is developed by Scottish Power Transmission plc (SPT) and National Grid Electricity Transmission plc (National Grid) with a budget of £1.294billion.

In December 2022, the connection received approval from the UK energy regulator Ofgem. As of July 2024, construction was expected to run from 2025 to 2029.

The cable will carry 2GW. The DC voltage will be +/-525kV, using voltage source converter (VSC) technology, carried on cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) cables, with a fall back option of mass impregnated (MI) cables.

Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2)
The cable will run from Sandford Bay, at Peterhead in Scotland, to the Drax Power Station in Yorkshire, England. The northern converter station will be next to the existing power station at Peterhead.

The subsea portion of the cable will be approximately  long, from the Aberdeenshire coast to the East Riding of Yorkshire.

EGL2 is a joint venture between SSEN Transmission and National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET). with a budget of £2.1billion. It is needed to reinforce the National Grid, to "alleviate existing and future constraints on the electricity transmission network", and support new renewable electricity generation. The main contractors are Prysmian, Hitachi Energy, and BAM.

Contracts to construct the cable were finalised in February 2024, and work is scheduled to commence after the final approvals from OfGEM came in August 2024. Target date for energisation was 2029.

The cable will carry 2GW. The DC voltage will be +/-525kV, using Voltage Source converter (VSC) technology, carried on Cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) cables, with a fall back option of mass impregnated (MI) cables.

Further proposals
Eastern Green Link 3 is proposed from Aberdeenshire to Lincolnshire and Eastern Green Link 4 is proposed from Fife to Lincolnshire.

See also

Western HVDC Link

References

External links
 SEGL1 project website at Scottish Power Energy Networks (where it is known as the "Eastern Link Project")
 EGL2 project website at SSEN, where it is known as "Eastern Green Link 2"
 EGL2 project website at National Grid, where it is known as "Scotland to England Green Link SEGL2"

Electrical interconnectors to and from Great Britain
Submarine power cables