Great Britain may need more than £150 billion to upgrade its power grid — OilPrice
Great Britain may need more than £150 billion to upgrade its electricity transmission network in order to connect new wind and solar power plants and meet growing electricity demand. According to estimates by Great Britain’s National Energy System Operator (NESO), £64 billion will be needed for electricity transmission projects by 2030, and another £89 billion after 2030.
OilPrice reports on the grid expansion plans. The project involves building electricity transmission pylons, subsea cables and converter stations. By the end of the decade, the country must build five times more such infrastructure than it did over the previous 30 years.
Thousands of kilometers of new lines
According to an analysis by The Guardian, Great Britain may need more than 4,000 miles of new power lines, or over 6,400 km, by 2041 to eliminate bottlenecks in the transmission system. They are to stretch from northern Scotland to southern England, with some of the cables to be laid under the sea. The upgraded lines will transmit electricity at a voltage of 400,000 volts from renewable generation facilities to consumers.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Over the next five years, operators are to invest £22 billion in rebuilding the network in the Scottish Highlands, on the islands and in northeastern Scotland, according to the source. This includes the construction of more than 1,100 large pylons for high-voltage cables along a 460 km route. Another £4 billion is to be spent on a subsea cable between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in North Yorkshire, stretching about 315 miles.
Risks of delays and consumer costs
Grid expansion is prompting objections from some rural residents through whose areas the new lines will run. In the short term, funding the modernization may also increase household energy bills.
At the same time, regulator Ofgem forecasts that if the projects are completed on time, households could save around £30 a year due to lower costs for curtailing electricity generation. The UK National Audit Office warned that delays would increase project and grid constraint costs, as well as postpone the connection of renewable energy facilities.
