Po inject the first kilowatt-hour into the British electricity grid, Xlinks must first secure an agreement with the government. It would be for the start-up to rely on a public subsidy to maintain a fixed price of 48 pounds / megawatt hour. If this scale is still below the price of energy produced from nuclear power plants (92.5 pounds / megawatt hour), the government’s reluctance must thus be removed before the current crosses the first cables.
However, the case appears to be well underway since the project has taken Whitehall, the long avenue in Westminster in London which houses the headquarters of the various ministries. The departments involved in the project are thus working on the support they could provide to take advantage of Morocco’s solar and wind potential to curb the kingdom’s high demand for electricity, reports the local press.
12 million solar panels, 503 wind turbines in the desert
With its interconnection line, Xlinks intends to demonstrate that the electricity it will produce in the Moroccan desert will be more, if not as profitable as nuclear energy, to supply British homes. The least we can say is that the figures as well as the progress of the project plead in favor of the objective that the British start-up has set itself.
Last July, XLCC, the company responsible for manufacturing some of the four 3800 km long cables, won the building permit for its mega-factory in Hunterston, Scotland. To supplement the production of cables coated with cross-linked polyethylene (PER, prized for its temperature resistance properties), a second industrial unit should be built in Teesside, near Middlesbrough, in the county of North Yorkshire in the northeast of the country.
In parallel with the production of the cables, Xlinks has mobilized three shipyards in the country to deliver the cable ship. Scheduled to be delivered from 2025, this vessel is assigned to all operational aspects around quality certification and the laying of 4 high voltage direct current cables (HDVC, acronym in English). To commission the first line from 2027, the British company is planning a mega-project involving several companies that will make its interconnection line between Morocco and the United Kingdom, the longest submarine power line in the world.
Costing 22 billion dollars, the project plans to build on 1,500 km2 in the region of Guelmim Oued Noun, a solar and wind farm which should eventually supply 3.6 GW of electricity. On this land area already granted by the Moroccan StateXlinks intends to install nearly 12 million solar panels and 530 wind turbines.
Backed by the installation of a 5 GW battery to store energy, this park would inject 10.5 GW of electricity into the UK grid, which is enough to meet 8% of demand. and power 7 million UK homes. The electricity thus produced in the desert will be transported from Morocco to the United Kingdom via a system of 4 HVDC submarine cables of 3800 km each, planned in deep waters and which will have to cross Spain, Portugal and France.
worries and doubts
Despite these staggering figures, the British government is worried about energy losses during the transfer of electricity between the two kingdoms, which could make it less competitive than that produced in a nuclear power station. ” As long as you can guarantee continuous renewable energy for 20 hours a day, it becomes almost like nuclear. You turn it on and you have electricity“, worried a British government source.
Concerns that do not seem to shake Xlinks’ confidence in its unprecedented project. In support of its ambition, the British company indicates that the site chosen benefits from an exposure of 3,500 hours of sunshine per year, compared to 1,500 hours annually in Great Britain. Without providing precise figures, Xlinks indicates that the region of Guelmim Oued Noun would also be well exposed to the winds throughout the year, which would guarantee an almost constant production and supply of electricity.
« This is an absolutely perfect site to install solar panels. And the wind resource is as good as our offshore wind turbines but much more consistent as it has daily convection currents which rise every afternoon, blow in the evening and night and drop again in the morning“, pleads for his part Simon Morrishthe CEO of Xlinks.
And yet, a long survey published by TelQuel went over the key players, the technical challenges and the cost of the project, without prejudging its feasibility. The experts interviewed by us lamented the low rate of local integration, but also technology transfer. Some experts even noted a loss rate of 12% during electrical transfer.
But Xlinks does not seem to bat an eyelid: it provides for the commissioning of the first electrical interconnection line between the two kingdoms in 2027. The other three cables would follow two years later, in 2029. The deadline seems to be getting closer and closer to confirm or invalidate his doubts.