Latest HVDC mega-project proposal: A link between the UK and Canada
If Laurent Segalen gets his way, one day Britain’s homes could be powered by Canada’s wind turbines and hydroelectric dams. He is one of a trio of clean energy investors who have just begun fundraising to build the world’s biggest subsea power cable, to connect the grids of Europe and Canada.
Provocatively, he called the project Nato-L, even though it has no connection to the military alliance. He named it to fit the acronym because he thinks the North Atlantic Transmission One Link would be good for national security, allowing friendly countries to trade electrons rather than relying on the unpredictable international gas market.
“The problem we have in Europe is that because we import so much fossil fuel every year, 4 per cent of our GDP is shipped to Dubai or Russia or Texas,” said the Franco-British investor. “I see renewable energy as an element of economic liberation, energy security, and people not blackmailing us. Plus, it’s clean.”
The 2,200 mile-long cable would have four times the capacity of the world’s biggest cable to date, the Viking Link that connects Britain and Denmark. Transmitting six gigawatts (GW) of electricity, it would be almost twice as big as Xlinks, a cable planned to bring solar energy to Britain from Morocco.
As Britain comes to rely more and more on intermittent renewable energy, Nato-L would help keep the lights on. At times when Britain’s wind turbines are becalmed, Canada’s may well be spinning briskly, and even if they aren’t, the grid operator, Hydro-Québec, could switch on more turbines in its hydroelectric dams, although it said it has not studied the concept.
On windy nights when Britain has gone to bed, the cable could send electricity the other way. Currently, when the winds are high but demand is low, British bill payers must pay wind farm operators to switch off to prevent excess electricity overloading the grid. In 2023 bill payers forked out almost £1 billion in so-called curtailment costs.
“Cables are the natural pair with wind energy,” Segalen said. “If they are sufficiently long, they can go beyond the local weather”. He has identified a site in Canada where it could land. On the European side, it would make sense to hook it up to one of the “energy islands” being built in the North Sea to connect offshore wind farms.
Segalen expects the project to cost £30 billion and take 15 years, but he insisted that it is not a “white elephant”, contrasting it with Hinkley Point C, the 3GW nuclear power station in Somerset, which is expected to cost about £45 billion. His co-investor Simon Ludlam has form in delivering power cables, having been vice-chairman of Eleclink, which runs through the Channel Tunnel. Segalen, who conceived the idea in 2022, is also working with the Irish energy investor Gerard Reid.
“It’s good for the consumer,” he said. “Right now, when the grid is really stressed, what happens is we turn on the most expensive gas turbines for £3,000 a megawatt-hour. The cable is going to be able to do so for £100.”
He said that his project has been given a boost by tariffs President Trump has imposed on Canada. The country’s new prime minister Mark Carney has suggested that Canada could retaliate by limiting energy exports to the US. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which regulates energy trading between the two countries, has warned that any restriction in trading could threaten grid stability.
Segalen argued that his interconnector could be a way for Canada’s grid operators to keep trading electrons even if trade with the US declines: “The Canadians [are] saying, ‘we need to diversify’. It’s not that they think they need to stop doing business with America, but they think it can’t be their only contact.”
Pierre-Olivier Pineau, a professor of energy at HEC Montréal business school, is an enthusiast. “I love this project,” he said. “I don’t think it will be built soon but it’s really good that it’s being discussed because we need to open our minds to the solutions.”
