A City financier supporting a proposed power cable between Iceland and Britain is launching a new venture to build several more links to electricity sources across Europe. Edmund Truell has set up Global Interconnection Group to explore projects similar to the 600-mile Icelink cable that would provide the ability to trade more electricity between the UK and the Channel Islands, Ireland and France, in the hope of easing the threat of shortages as fossil fuel power stations are retired. The new venture comes two years after Mr Truell helped line up international investors to fund a proposed £5bn cable to transport excess geothermal power from Iceland, through his Atlant ic Superconnection vehicle. The planned underwater cable is now the subject of a Government taskforce that will decide whether to subsidise the project. Both the Icelandic cable and the new projects will draw on expertise from Charles Hendry, the former Conservative energy minister who has acted as an adviser to Mr Truell’s ventures since 2013. Mr Truell, a well-connected Conservative party donor, said the new cable to Ireland would take advantage of surplus wind power in the country, while the line from Southampton to the Channel Islands and France could link to a proposed, but delayed, nuclear reactor planned by EDF in Flamanville, just 30 miles off the coast of Guernsey. “These are two-way flows that give much better energy security, and it’s typically much cheaper power than UK wind,” he said. “It would use a connection that was planned for an Isle of Wight wind farm that was scuppered on planning grounds.”
Telegraph 2nd Jan 2016 read more »