Keep knowledgeable with free updates
Merely signal as much as the Renewable vitality myFT Digest — delivered on to your inbox.
The UK authorities is ready to reject a £24bn undertaking to carry photo voltaic and wind energy from the Sahara to the UK through the world’s longest subsea cable, concluding that it had too many “holes”.
Backers of the Morocco-UK Energy Undertaking being developed by Xlinks believed that it may carry sufficient electrical energy from Morocco to provide greater than 7mn houses — about 8 per cent of Britain’s energy wants.
However ministers have been set to say on Thursday that they’d not present monetary backing for the undertaking, whose government chair is Sir Dave Lewis, former chief government of Tesco. Buyers within the scheme embody TotalEnergies, the French vitality large and the UK’s Octopus Vitality.
Ed Miliband, vitality secretary, concluded that the undertaking didn’t “stack up” and that it had too many “holes”, based on individuals acquainted with the scenario. The choice — which can be conveyed via a ministerial assertion — was first reported by Sky Information.
One official stated Miliband was involved in regards to the undertaking’s worth for cash, the shortage of provide chain advantages for UK firms, and rising geopolitical danger during the last 4 years — with extra potential for pipeline and cable interference by overseas states.
Xlinks is contemplating different industrial choices to develop the undertaking, resembling promoting its energy to giant firms, in accordance individuals acquainted with the matter.
The earlier Conservative authorities had inspired the undertaking and agreed in 2023 to declare it as being of “nationwide significance”, which might have allowed it to streamline the planning course of.
Underneath the plan, electrical energy from the Guelmim-Oued Noun area of southern Morocco would have been be equipped through cables operating 3,800km underneath the ocean to the tiny North Devon village of Alverdiscott, the place it could be linked to the nationwide grid.
It might have had era capability of 10.5 gigawatts, of which 7GW would come from photo voltaic and three.5GW from wind.
The earlier authorities believed the undertaking “may play an vital function in enabling an vitality system that meets the UK’s dedication to scale back carbon emissions and the federal government’s aims to create a safe, dependable and reasonably priced vitality provide for customers”.
Xlinks had been negotiating with the federal government to safe a assured mounted electrical energy worth, often known as a “contract for distinction”. Such contracts are broadly used to assist renewable vitality initiatives within the UK, serving to to get the offshore wind trade off the bottom.
Xlinks had steered a hard and fast electrical energy worth of £70 — £80 per MWh in 2012 costs which equates to about £100-£115 per MWh in right now’s cash. That’s larger than the UK’s present day-ahead electrical energy worth however decrease than the mounted worth awarded to the Hinkley Level C nuclear energy undertaking.
Miliband’s vitality division is anticipated to say on Thursday that the federal government has determined to not enter superior negotiations with the undertaking. It would as a substitute say that ministers need to give attention to homegrown sources of renewable energy.
Trade consultants had warned that the scheme would additionally face sensible challenges starting from the size and depths over which it could want to put cable and transport electrical energy, and potential bureaucratic hurdles due to the variety of jurisdictions it could must cross.
The Division for Vitality Safety and Web Zero and Xlinks declined to remark.
