Hecate Independent Power (HIP) has launched the USD30 billion HIP Atlantic project that will see 10 GW of fixed and floating wind turbines installed in the North Atlantic and connect with the UK grid.
High capacity, high voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine power transmission cables, which will be manufactured in the UK, will connect to wind farms in the Atlantic. Each ‘pod’ will comprise 1 GW of wind turbines.
HIP has lodged four applications with National Grid Company for an initial 4 GW of grid connections to the UK’s electricity transmission system. The first 2 GW of capacity is slated to be off the southern and eastern coasts of Iceland and is expected to be commissioned in early 2025 – coinciding with the UK’s plan to decommission its last coal-fired power plants and the last of its original generation of commercial nuclear power plants.
The HIP Atlantic HVDC transmission cables will never connect to the Icelandic transmission system: the high availability wind capacity will be solely connected to the UK, dispatched by National Grid.
HIP Atlantic also aims to maximise the British-manufactured content in every element of its equipment manufacturing and installation process. The initial 2 GW capacity alone will result in some 15,000 new jobs in the UK, said HIP.
