Iceland review - 2016, Page 54

52 ICELAND REVIEW
ENERGY FOR EVERYONE?
A 60-year debate on whether a submarine power cable could be built from
Iceland to the UK to export renewable energy at an optimal price
was recently reignited. Zoë Robert explores the issue.
PHOTOS BY PÁLL STEFÁNSSON.
The construction of a 1,200-kilometer-long subma-
rine power cable, or interconnector, from Iceland
to Scotland has been discussed on and off since the
1950s. Called IceLink, the proposed cable would be the
longest of its kind in the world and would deliver a volume
of up to five Terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per annum,
providing up to 1.6 million homes in the UK with renewable
energy from Iceland, and allowing Iceland to sell electricity at
a higher price abroad. In 2014, KPMG named IceLink one of
the world’s top 100 inspirational and innovative infrastructure
projects.
SECURING ENERGY SUPPLIES
The idea was first proposed 60 years ago and according to
Landsvirkjun, the National Power Company, its feasibility
has been regularly assessed over the last 30 years. The debate
on whether it should be built was reignited during UK Prime
Minister David Cameron’s visit to Iceland for the Northern
Future Forum in October. During Cameron’s visit, the first of
a British prime minister to Reykjavík since Winston Churchill
in 1941, a task force to examine the feasibility of the project
was announced. The task force will report back within six
months and, should the project go ahead, it is expected to take
at least five to six years to complete.
According to Björgvin Skúli Sigurðsson, head of marketing
and business development at Landsvirkjun, renewed discussion
of the project is primarily a result of events abroad rather than
at home. “Specifically the increasing demand for power, the
security of supply question—where is our energy going to
come from in the future?—and the fact that these countries are
closing down nuclear, coal-fired and gas power plants for cli-
mate change reasons. So it is events outside of Iceland that are
bringing these opportunities to Iceland and why it is a much
more relevant project now than it was in the past,” he says.
Björgvin says that the decommissioning of plants in the UK,
aimed at cutting emissions, will result in a drop in existing
power generation, leaving a gap which needs to be filled. The
British media have regularly reported that homeowners in the
UK face a continuing threat of blackouts because of power
shortages and also face higher energy bills because of power
station closures. “Even if the demand stays flat, where are
they going to get new power? It is one of the top priorities ...
The EU is asking: ‘Do you want to continue buying gas from
Putin? Do you want to continue buying coal or oil from the
rest of the world, or do you want to look closer to home and
ask ‘well, can we be more diversified in our supply and perhaps
more self-sufficient?’”
Isobel Rowley, senior press officer at the National Grid in
the UK, says that while existing electricity generation capacity
is stretched, should IceLink go ahead, it will be many years
before the project is realized. “While it is true that electricity
margins are tight, National Grid has put in place some addi-
tional services to help with the peak winter demands. With
these extra services, the situation is manageable. A link with
Iceland would be some years in the future and not of immedi-
ate help with today’s tight margins,” she commented via email,
later adding: “While old coal-fired power stations are coming
to the end of their life, new renewable energy is joining the
system.”
Another potential benefit of the interconnector is that, by
definition, it will connect the two countries’ transmission
systems, offering bi-directional flows and allowing the UK
to ‘store’ any excess energy in Iceland. Storing electricity
on a large scale is extremely challenging, even with today’s
technologies, but is possible using hydropower, says Björgvin.