Viking Link: Interconnector from Denmark to Great Britain

Background

Viking Link is a new high voltage direct current (DC) electricity interconnector between the substation Revsing in southern Jutland, Denmark, and Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire, Great Britain.

The interconnector went into operation on the 29th december 2023. 

Viking Link is developed by Energinet and the British National Grid, via National Grid Viking Link Ltd. and other subsidiaries.

There are three main reasons for Viking Link:

Energy security: Interconnectors play a crucial role for EU’s strategy for a secure European energy supply. Viking Link will increase the security of electricity supplies in both Denmark and Great Britain.

Electricity prices: In Denmark, Viking Link will increase the value of wind power. Better possibilities for cross-border electricity trading will contribute to lower wholesale prices for electricity in Great Britain.

Supporting renewables: To meet international and domestic renewable and climate change targets, Great Britain and Denmark are generating more power from renewable sources, including offshore wind. By its nature, wind generation is intermittent and interconnectors provide an effective way to manage these fluctuations in supply and demand.

Technical overview

The connection is composed of the following components:

North Sea:

• 625 km high voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine cables (76 km) between Great Britain and Denmark. The cables will be buried in the sea bed. 

Denmark

• A pair of onshore underground high voltage DC cables from the west coast of Jutland to the existing 400 kV substation Revsing near Vejen 
• Converter station in Revsing near Vejen to convert electricity between DC and AC
• New equipment within the existing 400 kV substation at Revsing

Great Britain

• A pair of onshore underground high voltage DC cables  (66.5 km) from the coast in Great Britain to a converter station
• A converter station to convert electricity between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC)
• High voltage alternating current (AC) underground cables from the converter station to the existing National Grid substation at Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire
• New equipment within the existing substation

Overall timeline

Note: It the first initial phase of Viking Link being in operations the link will operate at a maximum of 800 MW, which is lower than the expected 1400 MW. This cap has been introduced based on our most recent calculations and analyses for the capacity of our current Danish electricity grid systems, which shows that the current system can only receive a maximum of 800 MW of power before being overloaded.