Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps the Government is taking to support international electricity connectors.

The Government is committed to increasing electricity interconnection with projects that support our energy objectives.

A number of interconnection projects are already progressing under Ofgem’s regulatory regime1, designed to bring forward interconnection investment in the interest of GB consumers. This includes projects to France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Ireland, which have been assessed by Ofgem as offering over £11.8bn in consumer benefits. A second window for applications for the cap and floor project is open until 31 October and the Government is keen to see more projects coming forward that can deliver strong consumer benefits.

The Government has also supported a number of mature interconnector projects to benefit from access to European grant funding as Projects of Common Interest.

Together these projects represent billions of pounds of infrastructure investment and aim to more than double our interconnection capacity by the early 2020s. This will make Britain more energy secure and will help lower consumer bills.

[1] Source, Ofgem https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/decision-roll-out-cap-and-floor-regime-near-term-electricity-interconnectors