Denmark-headquartered power cable manufacturer and installation company NKT has completed the first cable pull-ins at Lemóniz in northern Spain, marking what it describes as an important construction milestone on a multibillion-euro interconnector, which will increase electricity exchange capacity between Spain and France from 2.8 GW to 5 GW.
NKT has reported that the cables for the Biscay Gulf interconnector were brought ashore from its NKT Victoria cable-laying vessel through a drilled route extending more than 1,000 meters. The landfall technique is intended to minimize disruption to the local environment.
Developed by INELFE, the joint venture between Spain’s Red Eléctrica and France’s RTE, and supported by the European Investment Bank and the European Union through CINEA, the power link will become the first submarine electricity interconnection between Spain and France.The interconnector will stretch approximately 400 kilometers between Gatika in Spain’s Basque Country and Cubnezais in southwestern France, with around 300 kilometers running beneath the Bay of Biscay. This electricity link will comprise two high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems, each with a capacity of 1,000 MW (1 GW).