An ambitious project to link the UK’s National Grid to Norway via a cable under the North Sea, in a bid to access that country’s vast supply of green energy, is being considered by ministers. It would involve laying a multibillion-pound “interconnector” between the energy-rich Scandinavian country and Britain – passing through a vast offshore wind farm being developed at Dogger Bank, the shallow area about 100 miles off the Yorkshire coast. The scheme has the potential to generate more than three times the energy produced by the new £24bn nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset. It is being considered alongside a proposal to link the UK to Iceland to access th at country’s volcanic geothermal energy and is part of a wider move to diversify Britain’s power sources. The Dogger Bank project, creating one of the world’s biggest offshore wind farms, is already under way but because of the intermittent nature of wind it cannot be relied on to generate consistent supplies of electricity.
Independent 13th Feb 2016 read more »