Since beginning construction work last year, our appointed contractors have established a construction compound and undertaken site clearance work. In the coming months, the team will build a temporary overhead line diversion required as part of the GSP substation’s construction, and large supergrid transformers will be delivered to site.
The items – including jewellery, pottery and the remains of 23 people from Anglo-Saxon times – were found during the construction of Viking Link, the world’s longest land and subsea interconnector.
Viking Link, which went live on 29 December, is the world’s longest land and subsea interconnector and enables the sharing of electricity between the UK and Denmark.
Wessex Archaeology excavated the site and removed items for research and assessment.
National Grid has been working closely with Wiltshire Council and Historic England in developing the project plans and agreed that archaeological surveys will be carried out prior to construction.
We have appointed Wessex Archaeology to conduct these archaeological works, which will be taking place from the first week of January 2024 and are expected to continue until the end of March 2024.
As this activity gets underway, we’ve asked Ruth Panes, the project manager at Wessex Archaeology in charge of the work to tell us what to expect:
The £1.7 billion project is a joint venture between National Grid and Danish System Operator, Energinet, and has the capacity to transport enough electricity for up to 2.5 million* UK homes, bringing over £500 million of cumulative savings for UK consumers over the next decade* due to cheaper imported power from Denmark.
Construction on Viking Link, National Grid’s sixth interconnector, started in 2019, with more than four million working hours spent to get to this point.
In fact, according to the latest research, the average home has over thirteen electrical devices and use a whopping ten of them every day. When asked what items they use daily, the TV pipped the smartphone to the top spot by just one percent, with a whopping 76% and 75% respectively. In third place were the larger domestic appliances including the kettle, toaster, dishwasher, and fridge.
Throughout 2023 the conversation around grid connections often focused on the need for reform – and we’re making strides as an industry to shape a new connections process that’s fit for the future.
As the transmission owner in England and Wales, we’ve also kept our focus on the job at hand: plugging clean energy projects into our network to help decarbonise Britain.
Seven years ago we took YouTube star Tom Scott deep underground to check out the first phase of our London Power Tunnels project to rewire the capital.
Fast forward to 2023, and Tom joined us again to share more insight with his followers into Britain’s electricity transmission network. This time he headed skyward, for a journey only a few experts are qualified to take – right to the top of a 120ft pylon.
Richborough Energy Park’s 100MW/100MWh battery will boost the capacity and flexibility of the network, helping balance the system by soaking up surplus clean electricity and discharging it back when the grid needs it – with a capability to power 250,000 homes for an hour.
2023 is drawing to a close, which makes it a good time to reflect on the great progress made over the last year and to look ahead at the one to come.
This was the year we announced the largest overhaul of the grid in generations, which will enable millions of UK homes and businesses to use renewable energy to power the things they need and love in years to come.
Between now and 2026 we’ll be working with our main contractor Balfour Beatty to install the underground cables and transform the skyline around Devizes by replacing 4.6km of overhead line and 13 pylons to the north of Devizes with underground cables. It’s a significant engineering challenge, but we will seek to minimise disruption wherever possible.
Archaeological surveys
Before we begin the main construction work on the project, there are a number of surveys and preparatory work we need to undertake.