The UK has started work to design and build a pilot hybrid interconnector that would link an offshore wind farm with a corresponding project elsewhere in Europe.
National Grid Ventures president Cordi O’Hara (pictured) told the WindEurope 2022 Bilbao conference that discussions are underway with Belgium and the Netherlands and that there is “potential” to collaborate with Norway.
O’Hara said: “We have a very progressive regulator that has opened up a specific window of opportunity this summer to bring forward joint proposals to look at how regulation can be adapted to get one [a hybrid interconnector] done.”
“The idea would be if we can do the first one, we can learn a lot.
“We can then set the broader framework very quickly and then you can have multiple hybrids delivered over time.
“Our ambition is to have the first one constructed pre-2030.”
The world’s first hybrid interconnector project, completed in 2020, was co-developed by 50Hertz and Energinet and links Denmark’s Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm with Germany’s Baltic 1 and Baltic 2 projects.
O’Hara continued there are legal and regulatory issues to resolve, such as how to match the UK’s cap and floor regime for interconnectors with a “compatible CfD arrangement”.