A small village in England is soon to become the center of attention for one specific reason. It will soon be connected to Morocco with the world’s longest undersea cable, something incredibly revolutionary in the global energy industry.
The tiny village called Alverdiscott with population 286, located in Devon, will be “connected” to North Africa when the cable is installed.
Called the Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project, the idea is meant to import enough sun and wind-generated energy to the United Kingdom that has the ability to supply at least seven million homes by the year 2030.
The subsea cabling will be a whopping 2,361-miles (or 3,8000 kilometers) in order to connect to the renewable energy-rich Guelmim Oued Noun region of Morocco to the tiny Alverdiscott, which is near Barnstaple.
The incredibly low-populated English village with just 286 residents has come to an agreement with the National Grid for voltage source convertor stations that will be set up there. Sir David Lewis, who was the former Tesco grocery store chain head, is actually the person behind the entire project.
Powered 100% by solar and wind energy, with a combined battery storage facility, this new electricity generation facility will be able to cover 579 miles, which is around 1,500 square kilometers) in Morocco, then it will be connected via four HVDV (high voltage direct current) sub-sea cables to Britain.
Incredibly, these plugs would then be connected to the otherwise quite remote Alverdiscott, which will host two 1.8GW connections. Meanwhile in Morocco, the convertor stations will change the high voltage alternating current (HVAC) power located at the generation site to HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current).
When this happens, the currents are sent through the subsea cable to the converter station in North Devon, which will then change it back to high voltage power that’s ready to be placed into the British transmission network.
From there, the currents ‘follow the shallow water route from Morocco to Alverdiscott, passing Spain, Portugal, and France.’
The reliability and cost of this massive project has already been completed via a technical feasibility study in order to validate its success rate.
With Sir David Lewis raising around £800 million, which is equivalent to more than $1.075 billion, to build the three UK production facilities that will be used to tap into the electric cables built precisely for undersea interconnectors and offshore wind farms.
According to an Xlinks spokesman, “This ‘first of a kind’ project will generate 10.5GW of zero carbon electricity from the sun and wind to deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy for an average of 20+ hours a day.”
Upon completion of the project, it will be capable of supplying at least 8% of all of Great Britain’s electricity needs.
The spokesperson went on to say, “Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility provides sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day, a dedicated, near-constant source of flexible and predictable clean energy for Britain, designed to complement the renewable energy already generated across the UK.”
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!
True Activist / Report a typo
