U.K. officials approved construction of a $5.5-billion largely subsea transmission line to send offshore-wind generated energy from northeast Scotland to northern England—the country's largest ever project of its kind and the first of many planned fast-track power links aimed to decarbonize its electricity system.

Work on the roughly 275-mile-long, 2-GW Eastern Green Link 2 will start this year and is set to commission by 2029, with about 40 miles to be buried underground onshore. 

Italy-based Prysmian Group will supply and install the cable while a joint venture of Hitachi Energy and BAM will deliver converter stations at each end of the link. The project is owned by the Eastern Green Link 2 Ltd. joint venture of Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission and England's National Grid Electricity Transmission.

Map courtesy Eastern Green Link 2 Ltd.

The line is the first of 26 projects within the U.K.'s Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment framework that can cut approval times by up to two years, said Jonathan Brearley, CEO of the U.K. Office of Gas and Electricity Markets. But fast-tracking "does not mean blank checks for developers as we are able to step in and make financial adjustments," he said, The government unit claims to have saved $100 million on the line developer’s initial costs. 

With the project deal signed, “we now look forward to working with our partners … on future projects including the proposed [2-GW] Eastern Green Link 3," said Sandy Mactaggart, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission director of offshore delivery.  

Work underway in developing a project supply chain will enable the proposed line to send power further down Britain’s east coast via a 340-mile subsea link.