A £3.4bn funding package has been awarded to build a new subsea and underground 500km cable between Scotland and Yorkshire.

Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) is the first of 26 projects to complete a fast-track process to secure funding through Ofgem’s new Ofgem’s Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework. ASTI accelerates the funding process by up to two years, allowing electricity generated by offshore wind to be delivered to British consumers sooner.

EGL2 will deliver a 2GW high voltage electricity ‘superhighway’ cable link between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Drax in North Yorkshire, which will help harness the potential of British offshore wind power. Most of the cable (around 436km) will be under the North Sea with the remaining 70km buried underground onshore. Two converter stations, one at each end of the cable, are planned to help feed the electricity transported by the cable into the grid and from there onto consumers.

Work on the project is expected to begin later this year and to be complete by 2029, whilst other ASTI projects are also progressing, including the Yorkshire Green Energy Enablement (GREEN) project, an upgrade to the local electricity network to help transport energy generated by Scottish and North Sea windfarms to consumers, and the North London Reinforcement Project and Scottish Hydro Electricity Transmission (SHET) Bulk Submission.

The ASTI framework was developed and introduced in response to the previous government’s policy ambition to connect up to 50GW of offshore generation by 2030, which was set out in the British Energy Security Strategy (published in April 2022).

A total of 26 projects have been identified by Ofgem for progression under the ASTI process, which is designed to help ensure transmission operators hit 2030 offshore wind connection goals.

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