The power link between Britain and France, the IFA1 interconnector, will take more time for repair work before it starts operating at full capacity.

One substation in Kent was left damaged by a fire in September 2021, which forced the shutdown of the project that brings electricity from France to the UK.

National Grid had previously said that the IFA interconnector would restart full operations by December 2022.

However, National updated the market via REMIT on Tuesday, expecting that IFA will return to 1,500MW on 20th December and its full 2GW capacity by 18th January.

The project is currently operating at 1GW.

A National Grid Ventures spokesperson told ELN: “The delay is due to a number of factors, including the availability of specialists and equipment supply challenges faced by our supply chain.

“Overall, the process has gone well. Close collaboration with suppliers and a 24/7 shift pattern has enabled us to completely rebuild the IFA converter hall in less than half the time it typically takes to construct a new converter station (around 15 months vs three years).

“We currently have 5.4GW of interconnector capacity available connecting GB with France (IFA 1GW, IFA2 1GW), Belgium (Nemo Link 1GW), the Netherlands (BritNed 1GW) and Norway (NSL 1.4GW).”

Article source: https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/11/18/uk-france-power-link-extends-outage/