Hamlet at centre of plan to harness Moroccan sun
AS the weather takes a turn for the worse and the days get shorter we’d probably all welcome importing a bit of Moroccan sunshine to the West.
But in a tiny Devon village that could now really be happening as it is at the centre of plans to harness the power of the African sunshine to brighten our lives.
A £16 billion project could see the world’s longest undersea electricity cable bring power from North Africa to the West.
The Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project envisages enough sun- and wind-generated energy being imported to the UK to supply seven million homes by 2030.
The plan would see 2,500 miles of subsea cabling connect Morocco’s renewable energy-rich Guelmim Oued Noun region with little Alverdiscott, near Barnstaple.
A new electricity generation facility, entirely powered by solar and wind energy combined with a battery storage facility, would cover about 1,500sq km in Morocco and then be connected exclusively to Britain via four HVDC (high voltage direct current) sub-sea cables.
These would plug into Alverdiscott (population 286), which would host two 1.8GW connections.
Agreement has already been reached with National Grid for voltage source convertor stations to be set up in Alverdiscott.
Convertor stations in Morocco will change the HVAC (high voltage alternating current) power at the generation site to HVDC, which is then sent through the subsea cable before a converter station in North Devon changes the HVDC back to HVAC, ready to be fed into the British transmission network.
A technical feasibility study has already been completed to validate the reliability and cost of the project.
Former Tesco boss Sir Dave Lewis is behind the plan, via his Londonbased start-up company Xlinks. Mr Lewis is also raising £800m to build three UK production facilities to tap into growing demand for the electric cables used for offshore wind farms and undersea interconnectors.
Xlinks said: “This ‘first of a kind’ project will generate 10.5GW of zero carbon electricity from the sun and wind to deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy for an average of 20+ hours a day.
“This is enough to provide lowcost, clean power to over seven million British homes by 2030. Once complete, the project will be capable of supplying 8% of Great Britain’s electricity needs.
“Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility provides sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day, a dedicated, near-constant source of flexible and predictable clean energy for Britain, designed to complement the renewable energy already generated across the UK.”
It said that when domestic renewable energy generation in the UK drops due to low winds and lack of sunshine, the project will use the benefits of long hours of sun in Morocco alongside the consistency of its convection trade winds, to provide zero-carbon electricity.
The Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project will see four cables, each 2,500 miles long form the twin 1.8GW HVDC subsea cable systems that will follow the shallow water route from Morocco to Alverdiscott, passing Spain, Portugal and France.
Morocco benefits from ideal solar and wind resources, required to develop renewable projects that could guarantee power production year-round. The country gets more sunshine than Spain and even the shortest winter day still offers more than 10 hours of sunlight.