A tiny village is to become the centre of a ‘revolution’ in the global energy industry and be connected to Morocco – with the world’s longest undersea cable costing £16billion.
The scheme will see Alverdiscott in Devon – population 286 – at the end of a line attaching it to North Africa.
The Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project says it will import enough sun and wind-generated energy to the UK to supply seven million homes by 2030.
The plan would see 3,800km of subsea cabling connect Morocco’s renewable energy-rich Guelmim Oued Noun region with little Alverdiscott, near Barnstaple.
Agreement has already been reached with the National Grid for voltage source convertor stations to be set up in the village, which has a population of 286.
The man behind the huge project is former Tesco boss Sir David Lewis.
The new electricity generation facility, entirely powered by solar and wind energy combined with a battery storage facility, would cover about 1,500sq km in Morocco and then be connected exclusively to Britain via four HVDC (high voltage direct current) sub-sea cables.
These would plug into Alverdiscott which would host two 1.8GW connections.
Convertor stations in Morocco will change the high voltage alternating current (HVAC) power at the generation site to HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current).
This is then sent through the subsea cable to the converter station in North Devon which changes it back to high voltage power, ready to be injected into the British transmission network.
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