Sea Link Interconnector
Sea Link is a National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET), High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) link between Suffolk and Kent, supposedly to improve transmission network resilience. The plans currently involve potential landfall through the North Warren between Aldeburgh and Thorpeness. It is meant to take excess power brought onshore by East Anglia One North (EA1N), East Anglia Two (EA2), Nautilus and LionLink, from Suffolk down to Kent to distribute within the Thames Valley where it will actually be used. However, Sea Link would not be necessary in the first place if offshore grid principles were followed for these various projects, pooling energy offshore and taking it subsea to landfall at brownfield sites closer to demand for power. We have been told by National Grid at a meeting that Sealink would currently cost £1.8bn, so going offshore to a brownfield site (e.g. Bradwell) would give a saving of c.£1.8bn. See our specific proposals for pilot projects involving LionLink HERE and in our letter to DESNZ Secretary of State Claire Coutunho in a recent Newsletter HERE
SEA LINK’s Statutory Consultation is live until 18 December 2023.
This is the last chance to comment on National Grid’s plans and we urge everyone to email/write to Sealink directly see below.
National Grid is still NOT listening
National Grid has not listened to last year’s feedback asking that offshore solutions and brownfield sites be considered – see their report HERE. It was as though the Staff were reading from a script presenting their Sealink plans as a done deal; constantly saying an offshore grid was not technically possible, and Bradwell had already been ruled out. We know from Belgium’s MOG1, operating from 2021, that offshore platforms are possible and, until they present an assessment of such and an assessment of Bradwell’s dormant substation and pylons, we can never trust what they say and have to keep challenging. Read More in SEAS Update 115
DRAFT FEEDBACK TEMPLATE HERE
We have drafted a template email with bullet points capturing the issues that have proved important to people so far during the consultation, to help you write about your particular concerns, in your own words. We need you to personalise your emails/letters. If you wish to delve deeper, you can find more details on each issue in the PEIR document in the Document Library. For those that wish to fill out SeaLink’s paper feedback form or complete it online, please find our guidance HERE.
SEALINK STATUTORY CONSULTATION DOCUMENT LIBRARY
See HERE for all documents and resources relating to the statutory consultation.
Archived information regarding Sealink’s first non-statutory public consultation below
This originally started on 24 October 2022 and ran until 18 December 2022.
SEAS Response to NGET’s Public Consultation, December 2022
This means there are now five confirmed energy projects planned to connect to the grid in the Leiston area.
Onshore Infrastructure
The sheer scale of the onshore infrastructure and cable corridors needed for this array of ever emerging offshore wind projects is horrifying.
Sea Link Interconnector will require an additional 6 hectare site, within 5 km of the proposed National Grid substation at Friston, to accommodate a converter station up to 30 metres high. The Friston substation itself will also need to be extended.
This will lead to further needless onshore environmental destruction.
The Way Forward – What do SEAS Think?
Why not take the power from these windfarms and interconnectors directly to where it is needed via subsea cables and connect them to the grid at a brownfield site closer to the centres of population further south. Could this not negate the need for Sea Link Interconnector altogether?
SEAS and SASES joint letter to Sea Link, January 2022
Timeline and Next Steps
Further Information
Website: www.nationalgrid.com/sealink
Email: contact@sealink.nationalgrid.com
Post: FREEPOST Sea Link
Free Phone: 0808 134 9569
Sea Link Interconnector Timeline
Non Statutory consultation
EIA Scoping Submitted to PINS
Summer 2023
Pre-consultation stakeholder briefings
Statutory consultation
Summer/Autumn 2023
Update Stakeholders
Summer/Autumn 2024
Submission of DCO Application
Autumn 2025
DCO Examination and Decision
Winter 2025
Commence discharge of requirements
2026 – 2030
Construction
What SEAS say about Sea Link Interconnector
Sea Link Interconnector Key Documents
Sea Link Interconnector in the Press
Cumulative Impact - SEAS Submissions into the EA1N/2 Examination
- SEAS Submission Final Submission Re: Cumulative Impact, 6 October 2021
- SEAS Supplementary Submission on Cumulative Impact Deadline 13 – 5 July 2021
- Cumulative Impact, Evidence from National Grid, SEAS Deadline 11 Submission
- Cumulative Impact, SEAS Deadline 9 Submission
- Cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 8 Submission
- Norfolk Vanguard and cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 6 Submission
- Cumulative Impact, SEAS Deadline 5 and Deadline 1 Submission
- Cumulative Impact, SEAS Deadline 4 Submission
- Cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 3 Submission
- Cumulative impact, SEAS Deadline 2 Submission
- NGESO and NGETS, Deadline 2 Submission
The Way Forward - A Split Decision
- The offshore turbines are recommended for consent.
- The onshore infrastructure is rejected in favour of full consideration of better locations for this infrastructure where the adverse impacts are minimised at a brownfield or industrialised site.
Campaigners call for ‘split decision’ over Suffolk windfarm projects, East Anglian Daily Times, 19 July 2021
SEAS Further submission with regard to a ‘split decision,’ A ‘Split Decision’- A Positive Way Forward, 5 July 2021
SEAS Submission to the Planning Inspectorate Re: The ‘Split Decision’ February 2021
Therese Coffey MP campaigns for a ‘Split Decision’ and to reject the Friston Substation site February 2021
The Way Forward - Offshore Integration
The benefits of an integrated offshore transmission network far outweigh any benefit gained from continuing with a radial transmission system.
Key Documents
Crossed Wires: Maintaining public support for offshore wind farms, Policy Exchange, July 2021
The Offshore Co-ordination Phase 1 Final Report, NGESO, 16 December 2020, NGESO: “Adopting an integrated approach for all offshore projects to be delivered from 2025 has the potential to save consumers approximately £6 billion, or 18% in capital and operating expenditure between now and 2050”. Importantly, footnote 5 states, “This means applying an integrated approach to all offshore projects that have not yet received consent”.
Energy White Paper, Powering our Net Zero Future, December 2020
On 6 November 2020, in response to Mr Duncan Baker’s adjournment debate, the then Energy Minister, and now the newly appointed Secretary of State for the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Mr Kwarteng, made a very encouraging response and said, amongst other things:
- The offshore wind industry had evolved since 2015;
- There was a shift in the industry towards integration.
- Point to point transmission was recognised as having severe detrimental impacts onshore
- Technology was available to build an offshore integrated network
- Industry was engaged through the OTNR
- The argument for some form of offshore network has been won
In July 2020 the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy announced a major Review, the Offshore Transmission Network Review to address the barriers it presents to further significant development of offshore wind, with a view to achieving net zero.
The findings of the Integrated Offshore Transmission Project (East) 2015 Report concluded that an integrated offshore solution was in the interests of the UK as a whole.
It is illogical for further radial connections to the grid to be approved. The acutely detrimental impacts of radial connections must now be properly recognised in the Planning Balance.
What is a 'MOG'? Is it the answer?, SEAS, June 2020
In the Press
UK
UK National Grid in talks to build an energy island in the North Sea, New Scientist, 11 October 2021
'Money can't compensate' for disruption caused by offshore wind, campaigners say, EADT July 2021
Prime Minister says coast could be the 'Riyadh of offshore wind' in PMQs, EasternDaily Press, 24 February 20021
U.K. Power Grid Moving Offshore to Support $27 Billion Wind Boom, Bloomberg, December 2020
Outdated regulation is slowing investment in onshore electricity grid, The Guardian, 1 November 2020
Offshore Wind in UK – Roadmap Required, Offshore Wind, October 26 2020
Change the way offshore wind farms connect and save billions - report finds, Eastern Daily Press, September 20 2020
Offshore wind blows hole in case for National Grid electricity role, The Times, October 8 2020
Modular Offshore Grid (MOG) - Can these ideas stop the countryside being dug up? Eastern Daily Press, June 27 2020
Norfolk MPs lobby Kwasi Kwarteng, Energy Minister at BEIS, SASES, 11 June 2020
Greenpeace suggests taking a more 'strategic approach' to offshore wind grid infrastructure, including increasing the number of grid connections to land shared between several projects, ReNEWS.BIZ, June 4 2020
Offshore Ring Main (ORM) feasibility study announced after Norfolk MPs met with Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng to discuss their concerns, Eastern Daily Press, June 2 2020
NORTH SEA INTEGRATION
North Sea EU countries step up plans to harness wind power, Financial Times, 20 May 2022
Plans for Offshore Wind-to-Green Hydrogen Energy Islands in Germany and Denmark Offshorewind.biz, 20 May 2022
Denmark maps seas for future offshore wind farms and energy islands, Recharge, June 8 2020
Denmark confirms massive wind plans for 'world's first energy islands' in North Sea and Baltic , Recharge May 20 2020
Denmark eyes 10GW offshore wind 'islands' in $45bn plan, Recharge, December 2019
North Seas ministers seek rules for meshed offshore wind grid, Recharge, December 4 2019
The USA
Growing chorus’ endorses multi-user transmission system, Riviera May 2020
Multi-user US offshore grid could 'save $1bn' ReNEWS.Biz, May 2020
Report Finds $1B in Grid Upgrade Savings, Other Benefits in Planned Transmission Approach to Offshore Wind, Yahoo Finance, May 2020
Campaign With Us
We are asking you to write, to the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), see full details HERE