submarine power cable
A submarine power cable is a transmission cable for carrying electric power below the surface of the water.Moray Firth in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
, linking Spittal in Caithness and Blackhillock in Moray. Constructed by Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks, it is capable of transmitting up to 1,200 MW of power. It was officially completed in January 2019, under budget at a cost of £970million, and was reported as the largest single investment in the northern Scottish electricity network since the 1950s.
The link was constructed to improve the connectivity of the Scottish electricity transmission network, and allow increased flow of electricity from renewable energy sources in the north of Scotland, such as the
Beatrice
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and Dorenell wind farms. It is the second HVDC link to be constructed within the National Grid (as opposed to as an interconnector), after the
Western HVDC Link
The Western HVDC Link is a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) undersea electrical link in the United Kingdom, between Hunterston in Western Scotland and Flintshire Bridge ( Connah's Quay) in North Wales, routed to the west of the Isle of Man. ...
.
Construction
The route was originally intended to form part of the Shetland HVDC Connection, however the project was split into two parts, with the Caithness - Moray link to be constructed first at a projected cost of £1.2billion.
The CaithnessMoray link was approved by regulators in 2014, with the contract for laying the undersea cable awarded to NKT. of the link runs beneath the sea, with a total of of underground cross-linked polyethylene cable at both ends.
The project required the construction of two new HVDC converter stations, at Spittal and Blackhillock, with the construction contract for these awarded to ABB. After the addition of the converter station,
Blackhillock Substation
Blackhillock Substation is an electrical substation located in the north east of Scotland, near the town of Keith in Moray.
It is owned and operated by Scottish Southern Electricity Network (SSEN). Covering an area the size of 24 football pit ...
became the largest in the UK, at the size of 24 football pitches.
The wider project also involved the augmentation of other parts of the power transmission network in northern Scotland, with upgrades carried out on a total of eight substations and two overhead transmission lines.