A 3,800-kilometer submarine cable will be built to link Morocco to the United Kingdom. On the move, Xlinks, a British company specializing in renewable energies.
A revolution is shaping up in the renewable energy sector. X links plan to build a 10.5 GW (7 GW for solar, and 3.5 GW for wind) power plant in Morocco and transfer the energy produced directly to the UK via an undersea cable High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) 3,800 km long, connected to sites in Wales and Devon. This represents the world’s first long submarine cable.
In a statement to PV magazine, Xlinks CEO Simon Morrish said the company is already in talks with the Moroccan government to define the exact site of the future plant and is working on obtaining permits with the relevant departments. . The probability is very high for this energy complex to be built in the Sahara. “The low cost of solar and wind generation in the Sahara means that the project can include significant storage to allow the project to supply electricity to the UK overnight,” the firm stresses.
According to the CEO of Xlinks, the first 1.8 GW cable will be operational as early as 2027, while the second cable should be commissioned in 2029. The 3,800-kilometer cable will consist of four cables. “For its deployment, three different routes were considered and the one not touching the territorial waters reached depths of 3,000 meters. We, therefore, opted for the shallowest route which is no more than 700 meters, ”said Simon Morrish. And to add: “This means that we will cross the territorial waters of Spain, Portugal, and France and we are now launching the authorization requests in this direction”.
