The Emirati group Taqa and the British energy company Octopus have just joined the submarine electric cable project linking Morocco and the United Kingdom, Xlinks.
The authors of the project which will produce clean electricity in Morocco and send it to Great Britain, have managed to raise an investment of 30 million pounds sterling for the development phase of the project.
The financing is divided into two, with a preeminent part in the first Emirati energy group, TAQA, which invested 25 million pounds. The second part comes from the Octopus Energy Group, the British energy company.
” With their investment, TAQA and Octopus validate Xlinks’ plans to lay the longest high voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine cable in the world between the United Kingdom and Morocco, crossing Portugal, Spain and France“, says Xlinks in a press release.
Quoted in the press release, Simon Morrish, CEO of Xlinks and Jasim Husain Thabet, CEO of the TAQA group, express their satisfaction and their ambition to bring about this ambitious project which will eventually connect Morocco to the United Kingdom through 3,800 km of cables. ‘clean energy.
” Thanks to this investment and the support of our partners TAQA and Octopus, as well as the support of the British and Moroccan governments, we are taking another step towards the realization of this ambitious project.”says Simon Morrish.
For his part, Jasim Husain Thabet, says his group is already working on a large-scale HVDC subsea project in Abu Dhabi and also owns one of the largest photovoltaic solar power plants in the world.
“This investment offers the opportunity to bring both our infrastructure and renewable energy expertise to the benefit of the UK and Morocco”did he declare.
The Xlinks project will generate and supply Devon, in south-west England, no less than 3.6 GW of clean electricity from solar and wind farms in the Guelmim Oued Noun region and transmitted through 4 cables that will be made in the UK. This corresponds to 8% of the country’s current needs, enough to supply seven million British homes by the end of the decade.
Xlinks claimed in its statement that the UK government has dedicated a team to work with UK society to monitor and understand the project and how it could contribute to their country’s energy security.
Electricity will be generated in the Guelmim Oued Noun region of Morocco by an installation of 10.5 GW of solar and wind farms, supported by 20 GWh/5 GW of battery storage. The facility will be linked to the UK power grid in Devon, South West England, via four 3,800km submarine HVDC cables, which will be manufactured in the UK.
The project is expected to create around 10,000 jobs in Morocco during construction and lead to significant foreign direct investment in the country.