Lady Hermon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lady Hermon on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking fully to utilise the electricity interconnection between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK before the UK leaves the EU; and if he will make a statement.

Jesse Norman

We are pleased that the Moyle interconnector is back up to full strength after a period of reduced capacity. This will help with security of supply, and the stability and flexibility of the grid in Northern Ireland.

One of the issues for the Moyle interconnector is that imports into Scotland are constrained by wider constraints on the Scottish grid and on the border between Scotland and England. A number of measures are being taken to strengthen the Scottish grid and grid connections to England. These include the Western HVDC link, which is due for completion in mid-2017 and will provide an additional 2.2GW of capacity.