Transmission license application marks start of new £700m connection process between NI and Scotland

Transmisson Investment is leading the £700m initiative to develop, construct and operate the new sub-sea infrastructure.

Dubbed LirIC, the new facility will provide up to 700MW of further capacity between the Irish Integrated Single Energy Market and the GB wholesale electricity market, allowing power from renewable energy sources to be supplied in either direction.

In a statement, Keith Morrison, LirIC project director, Transmisson Investment said “The application for a Transmission Licence is an early milestone in a long process, but it‘s significant in that it moves us one stage closer towards delivering this very exciting project.”

Morrison continued: “LirlC will increase the opportunities for home-grown renewables to export power to other markets, reduce the curtailment of wind generators, lower the wholesale power price in wholesale markets, which on average is forecast to be higher in Northern Ireland, as well as deliver social economic welfare benefits.”

LirIC will be made up of two convertor stations, one located in Northern Ireland and another in Scotland, and a cable length of around 130km linking the two, depending on the final route.

Transmission Investment, which is developing a similar scheme between England and France, submitted the application for a transmission licence to the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation on 17 May 2023.

Morrison said the company was committed to supporting the energy transition in Northern Ireland and Great Britain and enabling renewable energy. 

“This project will be able to transmit up to 700MW, which is over 40 per cent of the winter peak demand in Northern Ireland,” he said. “LirlC will help reduce Northern Ireland’s carbon emissions, and therefore will directly support the delivery of the national emissions reduction target of net zero by 2050. If all goes well, LirIC will be online around the end of the decade."