Gridlink project begins at Kingsnorth

Photo by Wil Pretty.

If you’ve seen the big yellow jack-up rig in the Medway at Kingsnorth you may have wondered what’s going on. The rig is for probing the river bed prior to laying of a massive electrical cable. The GridLink Interconnector Project is a 1,400 MW high voltage electricity cable that will provide a link between the national grids of the UK and France.

The cable connects the National Grid 400 kV sub-station at Kingsnorth to the RTE 400 kV sub-station near Dunkerque, France. The converter stations change the high voltage direct current to alternating current and adjust the voltage to 400 kV for the connection to the sub -stations. The cable route passes through the Medway Estuary and Thames Estuary, before turning south-east to cross the southern North Sea to the French coast.

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