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Jersey crisis exposes UK's dangerous reliance on undersea power cables

French fishing boats protest in front of the port of Saint Helier off Jersey 
French fishing boats protest in front of the port of Saint Helier off Jersey

It took 12 months, 1,000 engineers and 3.2m working hours to get it running.

Today, Britain's 149-mile subsea power cable between Hampshire and Normandy can trade enough electricity to power up to a million homes, equivalent to 1.2pc of Britain’s electricity demands.

It is the second subsea electricity cable, or interconnector, between the UK and France, and the fourth of 12 planned interconnectors to the continent.

And despite Britain's divorce from the EU, the UK's reliance on electricity connections to the continent is growing. New links are planned that mean up to 25pc of British power could be met by imports in 2024.

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As well as providing cheaper power from the continent, the cables mean Britain can export power when it is producing too much - an increasingly important service given its growing use of wind turbines.

Yet the risk of relying on such power flows was thrown into sharp relief last night after France threatened to shut down Jersey's power supply.

The move was triggered by a fight over post-Brexit fishing rights in which France accused the UK of using red tape to limit fishing in breach of the agreement made with the EU last year.

Jersey receives around 95pc of its electricity from France through three undersea cables.

Jersey Electricity insisted that "in the unlikely event electricity supplies from France are disrupted" its power stations at La Collette Power Station and Queens Road, which have a joint capacity of about 115 megawatts and run on gas and diesel, can meet requirements.

France may not trigger a blackout in Jersey, but its threat raises the prospect of similar actions against power flows to Britain as fishing and other political rows rear their head in the wake of Brexit.

As the deadline for a Brexit deal approached in October, President Macron said the EU could block the UK's energy supplies to the European market unless a deal was reached on fishing. Both fisheries and energy market access will be renegotiated in 2026.

Such threats place the country in a difficult position. In 2019, interconnectors supplied 8pc, or 25 TWh, of total electricity consumption in Britain, rising to 9pc in the first six months of 2020.

Overall, Britain imports far more electricity than it exports on interconnectors. In 2020, total interconnector exports were 4.5 TWh compared to imports of 22.9 TWh.

Interconnectors are particularly important at times of low temperatures and low wind supply in Britain. The price British traders paid for interconnector capacity briefly shot up from €10 euros per MWh to above €900 (£776) during a particularly cold still period at the start of the year.

Their role is becoming more and more important as Britain and countries across Europe increase their production of renewable energy, which is intermittent. When a country produces more power than it needs, for example on very windy days, markets abroad can buy the power.

The alternative can be to pay wind farms to stop spinning, which many decry as a huge waste of money. Another option is to build vast amounts of battery storage, which is technically challenging.

"Interconnectors are critical to being able to deliver increased renewables at a lower cost to consumers," says Anthony Tricot, a specialist in wholesale markets at EY.

Any disruption to interconnectors is unlikely to mean blackouts, but would probably trigger higher costs and could prolong the life of plants powered by fossil fuels such as coal which will be needed instead.

"We could cope but it would be more expensive. Same for other markets as well, they wouldn't want to lose access to us," says Tom Edwards, at energy consultancy Cornwall Insights.

That is among the reasons "it's very unlikely that you would end up in a situation where they cut off interconnectors", he adds.

But, Edwards notes, Brexit has already made power trading between the EU and Britain more complicated and less efficient, with both sides working on smoothing out the process.

A more realistic threat to Britain on energy policy might be to pull out of that work. "It can't get any worse than it is now," he adds.

National Grid also plays down the prospect of interconnector disruption, noting both the UK and the EU have set targets for more interconnectors.

A spokesman added: "The UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement ensures cooperation on security of supply and the efficient use of interconnectors, including their non-discriminatory treatment. It also has its own mechanisms for resolving disputes."

Apart from anything else, says Phil Hewitt, director at energy data business EnAppSys, "engineers don't like being told what to do by politicians.. Power will still flow".