Planning sought for Irish side of €450m UK interconnector

The interconnector would have the capacity to power the equivalent of 380,000 homes.

A planning application is to be submitted to An Bord Pleanála this week for permission for the Irish side of a €450m grid-connector with the UK.

The project, named Greenlink, is a privately funded interconnector which would see a 190km grid connection placed between the Wexford and Wales coastlines.

The interconnector would have a nominal capacity of 500 megawatts, equivalent to powering in the region of 380,000 homes.

The planning application will be made under Strategic Infrastructure Development rules meaning it can be made directly to ABP rather than having to first submit to the relevant local authority.

Such planning dispensation is available to projects deemed to be of heightened social and economic importance to the State.

Greenlink earlier this year secured permission from the coastal authority in Pembrokeshire, Wales, regarding some of the onshore works necessary for the project’s completion on the UK side.

The entire operation is projected to go live, pending approval, by 2023.

Construction jobs

Ireland’s side of the project is slated to create 250 construction jobs, Greenlink said.

The interconnector will function by allowing power to flow in either direction dependent upon the supply and demand in each country.

When completed the massive project would connect Wexford’s Great Island substation, adjacent to Waterford harbour, with the UK national grid’s equivalent station at Pembroke, in the south of Wales.

The company said that the project should be ready to commence next year, and that on completion Greenlink would be of critical importance for supporting Ireland’s climate action plan in terms of decarbonising the energy grid.

“There are a swathe of benefits which interconnection brings,” Nigel Beresford, Greenlink’s chief executive said.

They include improved energy security, regional investment, and competitive energy costs for consumers, he said, together with “facilitating the integration of low carbon renewable energy sources”.