Ireland
UK
Scotland
London
The two national Transmission System Operators, EirGrid in Ireland and its
French counterpart, RTE (Réseau de transport d’électricité), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to commission further preliminary studies on the feasibility of building a submarine electricity interconnector between Ireland and France.
An Ireland-France interconnector would, if developed, run between the south coast of Ireland and the north west coast of France, and would comprise a cable length of approximately 600 kilometres.
Over recent months, EirGrid and RTE have conducted studies, which indicated that an interconnector between the two countries could be beneficial for electricity customers in Ireland and France.
By this agreement, the two Transmission System Operators will continue and deepen their cooperation, and conduct further detailed feasibility studies. These studies will focus in 2013 on desktop analysis of the seabed to identify potential route corridors.
The capacity of the Ireland-France interconnector could be approximately 700 megawatts (MW), or the equivalent of the power demand of about 450,000 households. Last year EirGrid completed construction on the 500MW submarine East West Interconnector between Ireland and Wales.
(CD/MH)
