Construction BUSINESS

Construction works on the converter station site in Wexford for the €400m Greenlink Interconnector commenced in late January.

Greenlink will link the Irish and UK electricity transmission systems via 190km of underground and subsea cables between Wexford and Pembrokeshire Wales and is one of Europe’s most significant energy infrastructure projects.

Construction work on the cable routes will commence in the second half of this year. The development will see the building of electricity converter stations at Great Island in Campile and the laying of cables through a wide area of south Wexford including the townlands of Kilmannock, Dunbrody, Saltmills, Grange, Kilile, Rosetown, Coleman, Ramsgrange, Kilbride, Ballinruan, Aldridge, Booley, Broomhill, Lewistown, Kilcloggan, Templetown, Graigue Little, Graigue Great, Lamstown and Ramstown.

The interconnector will link electricity grids in Ireland and the UK and while the Greenlink application represents the Irish onshore work, the trans-national electricity project will ultimately involve the laying of 190km of high voltage cables stretching underground and beneath the sea from the Great Island 220kV substation to the UK National Grid’s substation in Pembroke.

A new converter station, tail station and MV substation is being built at Great Island, while 23km of high voltage direct current electricity cables will be laid along with 420m of high voltage alternating current cables and 23.42km of fibre optic cables across an overall site area of more than 200 acres.

This project, which is the first privately funded interconnector in Europe, has a nominal capacity of 500 megawatts (MW) which is equivalent to powering 380,000 homes. It will provide a new grid connection between the existing Great Island substation and the UK National Grid’s Pembroke substation in south Wales, thereby allowing power to flow in either direction depending on supply and demand in each country. It will take almost three years to build the project with around 250 jobs being created in Ireland during construction.

The company held an open day in New Ross in November last in order to meet suppliers, contractors and other local businesses which might be interested in working on the project. It’s still not too late for expressions of interest to be sent to procurement@greenlink.ie, a company spokesperson said. “Residents and businesses will be notified ahead of construction taking place in their area. All work will be undertaken in the least disruptive fashion possible at all.”

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build Greenlink has been awarded to a consortium comprised of Siemens Energy AG (Siemens Energy) and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd (Sumitomo Electric). The contract will cover works on the onshore and subsea high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable systems, two converter stations, a tail station at Great Island and onshore cable works in Wexford and Pembrokeshire, Wales.

The award also includes a service and maintenance contract following commissioning of the project, which is expected to be in 2024.

Source Independent.ie