England and Scotland are presently debating the terms of a
referendum in 2014 that could see Scotland leave the United
Kingdom. Two years after that vote, however, Scottish and
English energy networks will become significantly better
connected. HVDC Link is a unique project establishing many
firsts for interconnectors around the world. Costing around £1
billion to install, it will be the first grid interconnector
below the sea ever to use high voltage direct current. It will
become the longest 2,200MW capacity HVDC cable in the world and
will be the first to operate at 600kV. project is set to break
boundaries in several regards as it seeks to meet a significant
need for greater grid capacity across the UK. With large scale
development of renewable energy capacity in Scotland, the
challenge is to grow transmission capacity between Scotland and
England, where large population centres consume much of the
energy produced. This challenge is pressing as the two existing
overhead lines that cross the border are run