The scheme, which is aimed at improving the grid’s resilience and security, will result in the replacement of a land cable in France which supplies two of Jersey Electricity’s under-sea interconnectors between France and Jersey.
Jerry Willis, senior project engineer for Jersey Electricity, said that the additional power was enough to supply around an eighth of the Island’s power needs during the winter and about a quarter during the summer.
‘We are conducting an upgrade of the Normandie Two circuit which we installed in 2000,’ he said.
‘The land cable connects the sub-sea cable, when it lands in France, with the country’s national grid and by performing this upgrade we will be able to access a greater current.’
Once the project is complete, Jersey will be able to tap into a combined total of 263 megawatts of power from France through a series of three under-sea cables. The project comes nearly two years after the Island’s first under-sea interconnector, the 27 km EDF1, was removed.
The work is being carried out by Réseau de Transport d’Electricité – the company responsible for the French national grid.
Mr Willis added that the work would make the Channel Islands’ electricity supplies more resilient and reliable.
‘At face value when you look at how much spare capacity we have on the network this work will allow us to be more resilient when we need to close off a cable for maintenance or when there is a failure,’ he said.
‘We can generate electricity locally but we do that very sparingly, only usually at times of peak demand.’
