LIONLINK/EUROLINK ANNOUNCEMENT, IT’S NOT NEW NEWS
The latest Secretary of State responsible for energy at the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Grant Shapps, announced LionLink on Monday 24 April 2023. A supposedly new interconnector project to link the UK & EU.
BUT this is not new news, it is a re-launch to fanfare the project as the latest green joint venture between the UK and EU (The Netherlands). A set piece for Grant Shapps who was leading the UK delegate at the ‘North Sea Summit’
Lionlink is in fact merely a rebrand of National Grid’s Eurolink project with a new name reflecting a post Brexit world. The Government announcement appears to be an exercise in hype and spin to try and encourage more investment in UK energy and build PR for UK & EU grid connections.
In fact LionLink (formerly Eurolink) is poorly devised, it does little to improve Energy Security and causes more damage and disruption to the Suffolk Coastal communities who are facing an onslaught of catastrophic energy proposals causing repeated damage to the Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB and surrounding area.
1. Lionlink will not provide offshore grid connections for new UK wind farms, each windfarm still requires acres or land for onshore substations so NO reduction in onshore infrastructure. In fact LionLink itself will contribute massively to further industrialisation of rural East Suffolk as it plans to connect to the grid via its own convertor station which also needs to be constructed somewhere onshore.
2. Lionlink will not generate any renewable energy itself, it’s contribution to energy security is doubtful – if there is a shortage of energy in the UK & EU (on both sides) the solution will not improve energy security as it fails to provide the missing piece of the puzzle renewable generated ‘energy storage’ key to real energy security in a renewable world.
3. There is nothing new about interconnectors there are already several subsea cables connecting the UK to continental Europe.
4. The quoted figures of £20 billion investment in the UK’s coastal regions and of 40,000 skilled green jobs being created are misleading – we know from Scottish Power’s EA1N and EA2 projects that investment in East Suffolk is minimal relative to the overall capital investment in the wind farms and longterm job creation is minimal.
5. Overall this announcement is a reflection yet again of the Government’s and National Grid’s inadequacy in addressing the real energy security needs of the UK.
