Viking Link Won’t Enhance Energy Security
By Paul Homewood
The National Grid have proudly announced the launch of the Viking Link, which will send electricity to and fro between here and Denmark:
Working with Energinet, the Danish power grid operator, we are proud to announce the launch of our record-breaking electricity interconnector between the UK and Denmark, Viking Link.
Viking Link is the world’s longest subsea and land interconnector, travelling 475 miles to join Bicker Fen substation in Lincolnshire with Revsing substation in southern Jutland, Denmark. Denmark has one of the world’s highest proportions of wind generation, so it is the perfect country to connect to, sharing clean electricity and helping the UK and EU meet 2050 net zero emission targets.
There will be huge benefits for UK consumers including cheaper, greener power and increased energy security, as the UK can call on additional power from Denmark when needed.
Initially, Viking Link will be operating at a capacity of 800MW before increasing over time to 1.4GW, powering up to 2.5 million UK homes and bringing over £500 million of cumulative savings for UK consumers over the next decade. National Grid and Energinet will be working together to bring the asset up to full capacity over the coming year.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/national-grid-ventures/viking-link
While it may give us access to cheap wind power when there is a glut of it in Denmark, it certainly will do little to enhance energy security, as they claim.
Has it not occurred to the National Grid that when the wind is not blowing here, there is a good chance it is not blowing in Denmark either?
Remember that cold start to December, when high pressure was in charge? Wind power in Britain collapsed to well below 2 GW, a tiny fraction of its normal output:
https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/generation-by-fuel-type
Over in Denmark, exactly the same thing happened, with wind power accounting for as little as 13% of total generation:
https://www.energymonitor.ai/power/live-eu-electricity-generation-map/
What power we can manage to get hold of at times of low wind will be astronomically expensive. And if we try to export our surplus wind at times of glut, it will be at a loss, which the public will ultimately pay for.
No doubt it will be a nice little earner for the National Grid. But it the public who will have to pick up the bill!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
It would seem that every country in Europe is hoping to import electricity from every other country when the wind isn’t blowing. Utter madness! The Chinese will be laughing their socks off at the self-destruction going on in Europe.
I’ve never understood why the “wind is always blowing somewhere” argument gets so much traction. Anyone can see that it’s false just by watching weather charts for a few months. As a nation we’re supposed to be obsessed by the weather, obviously we’re not.
I recall that the argument was first presented by the Sustainable Development Commission in the early 2000s, headed by that well known green expert Jonathon Porritt. The labour government at that time believed the green nonsense spouted by Porritt who was a government adviser. I still have some of their reports hidden away somewhere. It is no wonder the country is in such a mess today.
I don’t understand also why the subsea cable came ashore at Sutton on sea the did 40 miles though Limncolnshire farmland with a 100m swathe to Bicker fen. surely cheaper easier to come ashore in the wash near fishtoft.
Triton Knoll windmills already tore up the ground in that corridor
Quite, I live near this lie, and all the solar farms that are trying to be planted in the area.
Actually, things are much worse than you think. The NG press release is complete twaddle. First, a connection to South Jutland is little more than an indirect route from Germany to the UK. Given the location of wind farms in Denmark and Germany any supplies of wind generation via the Viking Link are likely to come from wind farms in the North West of Germany.
Second, Energinet is far from stupid, though NG gives every appearance being completely idiotic. This is an export interconnector, exactly similar to the North Sea Link (NSL) link from Norway to the UK, which is designed to export power from low price zones in continental Europe (DK1 for Viking Link and NO2 for NSL) to the UK which is a relatively high price power market. There may be a small reduction in UK market prices, though not much because 800 or even 1.4 GW is pretty marginal in UK terms. Nobody in Denmark/Germany is really interested in importing power from the UK. The direction of flows over the NSL link is almost entirely from Norway to the UK.
Thirdly, the biggest visible effect will be to push up the cost of CfD subsidies by lowering market prices when wind generation in the North Sea area is particularly large. During such periods market prices in Germany, Denmark and Norway go to zero or negative values and Denmark has long been desperate to dump excess power from Germany rather than receive low or negative prices by exporting it to Norway. In reality, therefore, the Viking Link is a slightly more direct route for exports from Germany to the GB – previously DEU -> DK -> NO -> GB, now DEU -> DK -> GB.
Finally, somebody has to pay for the capital and operating costs of the Viking Link. Since it is an export link, that will be consumers in the UK. Who in NG is going to admit that?
Norway does very nicely out of Denmark as it sells them expensive hydro power in return for virtually free excess wind power.
And when the wind does blow then Germany wants to export to other countries. Unfortunately (for them) most countries e.g. Poland, Czechia, possibly The Netherlands now use phase transfer transformers to limit that.
That leaves Denmark, which doesn’t need any as their turbines will be working too, so they have to export to Norway where they just shutdown their hydro and offer low rates. Of course when Denmark needs electricity the price goes up.
Norway has been finding that extra interconnection isn’t really beneficial. When there are shortages in Germany, prices get bid up in ways that were never possible via the limited links through Denmark. Having built an economy on cheap hydro they now find that prices in Southern Norway are frequently excruciating. The North Sea Link is more of the same, and it is why the Norwegians refused to countenance a further link to Scotland.
So is 0/1 + 0/1 connected in parallel or in series going to be any better and give us a return on investment ? ( for those who don’t understand, jumpleads on 2 flat batteries won’t make any difference to the outcome )
I suspect we will get some very expert analysis from PF Bach, who monitors the Danish situation closely, as well as the surrounding countries. He has just posted the Danish supply picture week by week at hourly resolution for 2023.
http://pfbach.dk/
He has a number of very interesting analyses that he posted recently, including one on how rapid fluctuation in output at large solar farms is causing problems with balancing reserves for the Danish grid: surely a key parameter for large farms.
Click to access pfb_drifting_clouds_cause_additional_electricity_cost_in_denmark_2023_12_15.pdf
Sheffield Solar has some older research, but it is limited to half hour intervals rather than the much more alarming ramp rates talked of in Denmark
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275100144_Quantifying_PV_fleet_output_variability_in_the_UK_Consequences_for_Distribution_Network_Operators
His piece on falling market values of renewables as surpluses become more frequent is also worth a read. I expect he will produce his annual map of intra European power flows in a few weeks time when the data are available. A valuable resource to understand how Europe has been coping with major policy changes such as nuclear and coal phase outs.
Both Norway and Denmark are relatively small electricity systems. In Denmark there is a high correlation between output from different renewable generators of the same type, which is why the systematic variability of solar output is such a problem.
As you note, Norwegians have realised that there are significant disadvantages in having turned their hydro reservoirs into a huge battery for NW Europe. Not only are they unenthusiastic about building new interconnectors but there is significant pressure to cap either prices or exports when export demand and prices are high.
There is a crucial lesson from this which modellers and policymakers ignore. Power systems are national and aren’t run for the benefit of other countries, especially when trade is between EU and non-EU countries. Even in the EU the response of Poland, etc to the swings in trade between Germany and neighbouring countries shows that national interest come first.
Assumptions that markets and trade will continue to function “normally” even when this implies large price fluctuations and high costs imposed on domestic customers are just daft. As an analogy think of repeated meltdowns in financial markets such as during the 2008-09 financial crisis or in 1997-98 with Russia and the Asian financial crisis.
It is inevitable that the UK’s model of combining highly intermittent generation with reliance on market-driven interconnectors will blow up in the next decade. The question is not whether but when and how often. Anyone with knowledge of basic probability as well as power systems around the world should realise that. Of course, almost by definition, that excludes senior management at NG and UK energy policymakers.
I think the solar problem is there for large scale solar farms more or less regardless of size of network unless they are transmission connected at a minimum. The Sheffield study at half hour resolution identified high levels of correlation in output on days with variable cloud at length scales up to 15km. But that was just taking small mainly rooftop systems. If you have a large park, such as the proposed 840MW with no battery at Botley West you could easily see oscillations in output of 500MW in the space of a few minutes at regular intervals. The strain on Didcot B to offset would be horrendous. Experiments at Culham become risky if supply cannot be relied upon, so would be confined to hours of darkness.
I think large solar parks will end up mandated to have batteries as smoothing capacitors, which will of course increase costs….
It is amazing how trying to keep up with these green electrons seems like following one of M. C. Escher’s drawings. The go up/down/around with loses and costs along every step.
A couple of coal and nuclear facilities would solve the issue and last a lifetime, or more precisely, about 3X longer than a wind turbine.
What about a connection to Antarctica where the katabatic winds can blow at over 100km/h for days on end ? 🙂