According to Ofgem, National Grid did not take enough precautions to prevent delays in its Viking Link interconnector project, which intends to connect the British and Danish power transmission systems. A 1.4GW high voltage direct current power link is being built between the Revsing substation in southern Denmark and the Bicker Fen substation in Lincolnshire.
The 25-year cap and floor regime start date for the Viking Link project has been moved back to January of current year as a result of the delays.The project’s developer, National Grid Viking Link Limited (NGVL), had asked for a postponement of the Regime Start Date (RSD) due to circumstances they deemed uncontrollable and which had impeded progress in several crucial locations.
After careful study, Ofgem decided to grant NGVL’s request to specify a later RSD and plans to move Viking Link’s RSD from 1 January 2021 to 1 January 2023. Ofgem has refuted NGVL’s assertion that the cable market’s manufacturing capacity problem wasn’t foreseen until after the IPA ruling.
Dealing with this matter, Ofgem said: «We note that in its initial project assessment (IPA) submission, NGVL identified the potential for the project to encounter constraints in the MI cable market. Despite this, the project plan submitted by NGVL in support of its IPA submission does not show any additional time having been factored in to accommodate potential delays resulting from the noted potential cable market constraints. We also note that factoring in such additional time for cable market constraint-related delays may have potentially put at risk NGVL’s ability to meet the window 1 eligibility criteria of connecting by 1st January 2021. We do not agree that another window 1 project taking up manufacturing capacity in the cable market could not have been reasonably foreseen by NGVL and in particular we do not agree with NGVL’s suggestion that this was unforeseeable until after the IPA decision».
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