Contact Said El Mansour Cherkaoui:
saidcherkaoui@triconsultingkyoto.com
Updated on April 1, 2023 and January 5, 2022 – Originally Published on October 3, 2021
This is the first project in a while that has genuinely blown my mind at the scale and complexity of #ProjectManagement involved!
I’ve tried to summarise this ‘bonkers-scale’ project…
(Thanks Association for Project Management for bringing it to my attention. FYI I have no links to this project.)
– British company Xlinks is planning a project in Morocco to develop a 10.5GW solar farm, a 20GWh battery storage system and a 3.6GW high‑voltage direct current interconnector to carry electricity to the UK (and a massive windfarm).
– That requires four 3,800km-long cables!
– The scale of the Xlinks project is overwhelming – and could provide nearly 10% of UK electricity needs (c.7 million homes).
– The full £18bn proposal would take up 1,500 sq km of Moroccan desert. That’s about the size of Greater London.
– From Morocco to the UK, the cables will be crossing 68 other cables and then go 15km inland to the conversion site in Devon.
So, how do you manufacture such large, lengthy cables?
– XLinks have created a sister company XLCC to carry out the cable manufacturing and laying.
– It will take at least three years just to get going.
– North Ayrshire Council (Scotland) has granted planning permission to build the first HVDC subsea cable factory in the UK.
– Assembly requires cable to run through the factory, building layers on the aluminium core, through to the outer insulation layer. But that coating takes three hours to harden, and to avoid it collecting on the underside of the cable, they have to run it vertically for that period.
– So they need a tower 180m high – it will be Scotland’s tallest building!
– The tower alone will take a year to build.
– It will take another year to build and fit out the rest of the plant – which will end up being 800m long and 375m wide.
– Then the cable needs to be tested – which means putting a section under incredible stresses of heat and cold for a year, at 180% capacity.
Wait, won’t they need a big boat too?
– The biggest cable-laying vessel in the world is not big enough.
– XLCC are going to need a bigger vessel capable of carrying two 13,000-ton spools. So that has to be commissioned – a three-year project on its own.
– The vessel will be 200m long, 35m wide and include 110 bedrooms and a canteen.
Who’s going to join the cables?
– At sea, they need to be able to join the cable, which is manufactured in 20km sections, into the 160km spools for the vessel.
– That’s a skilled job, so they need 60 joiners on the team.
– It takes three years to fully train and certify them. XLCC are already been working with academic institutions to recruit engineering graduates to join a programme.
Mind blown.
https://lnkd.in/erHwRaRq
https://xlcc.co.uk/
#engineering #manufacturing #solarpanels #electricity #greenenergy #solarfarm #projects #power #uk #solar
Contact Said El Mansour Cherkaoui:
saidcherkaoui@triconsultingkyoto.com
Version Française
Royaume du Maroc et Royaume Uni: Liaison Electrique par Câble Sous-Marin
Published by Said El Mansour Cherkaoui – Publié le 3 Octobre 2021 – mise a jour 1/5/2022 En Grande Bretagne, le minuscule village du Devon de 286 habitants est relié au MAROC par le plus long câble sous-marin du monde pour 16 milliards de livres sterlingLe village d’Alverdiscott, Devon, est la destination finale du projet de câble sous-marin de 16 milliards de livres sterlingLe village de 286 habitants est relié à une … Continue reading
The Solution is coming from under the Water.
We’re part of @xlinks_uk’s project to build a giant cable between Devon and Morocco, unlocking more reliable, cheap and clean electrons 20 hours a day. “What’ll we do when the wind’s not blowing in the UK?” “Get sunshine from Morocco.”
The Answer my British Friend is Blowing in the Wind !!!
https://t.co/Tk9B8Jnk6Y pic.twitter.com/zOmpSf36LD— Octopus Energy (@OctopusEnergy) May 12, 2022
@xlinks_uk‘s project to build a giant cable between Devon and Morocco.
In Britain, the tiny Devon village of 286 people is linked to MOROCCO by the world’s longest £16 billion submarine cable
The village of Alverdiscott, Devon, is the final destination of the submarine cable project £16 billion marine
The village of 286 is linked to a line to Morocco. The scheme will import solar and wind power to power seven million homes by 2030
The Answer my British Friend is Blowing in the Wind !!!
The Solution is coming from under the Water.
The Morocco – UK Power Project
The Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project will be a new electricity generation facility entirely powered by solar and wind energy combined with a battery storage facility. Located in Morocco’s renewable energy rich region of Guelmim Oued Noun, it will be connected exclusively to Great Britain via 3,800km HVDC sub-sea cables.
This “first of a kind” project will generate 10.5GW of zero carbon electricity from the sun and wind to deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy for an average of 20+ hours a day. This is enough to provide low-cost, clean power to over 7 million British homes by 2030. Once complete, the project will be capable of supplying 8 percent of Great Britain’s electricity needs.
Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility will provide sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day, a dedicated, near-constant source of flexible and predictable clean energy for Britain, designed to complement the renewable energy already generated across the UK.
When domestic renewable energy generation in the United Kingdom drops due to low winds and short periods of sun, the project will harvest the benefits of long hours of sun in Morocco alongside the consistency of its convection Trade Winds, to provide a firm but flexible source of zero-carbon electricity.
British renewable energy company Xlinks is the developer of the project which will cover an area of around 579 square miles (1,500 square kilometers) in Morocco. A 10.5 gigawatt (GW) solar and wind farm will be built in the Moroccan region of Guelmim-Oued Noun. The cables will run above ground from the Power Plant until they reach the town of Tantan, where they will run underground.
The laying of the cable will be done with the help of fishing fleets, and the planned route of the cable avoids as many conservation areas as possible. Following a shallow water route from Morocco to the UK, via Spain, Portugal and France, these cables will connect to the UK national grid in Devon.
Clean energy will thus be connected exclusively to the UK via 2,361 miles (3,800 km) and this with high voltage, direct current (HVDC) submarine cables and are used because of their ability to reduce inefficiencies when transporting energy.
This project is part of the drive to achieve a national net-zero electricity grid by 2035. Xlinks says the Morocco-UK electricity project will be able to power 7 million UK homes in by 2030, representing up to 8% of UK energy needs.
The project will cost $21.9 billion. Xlinks will build 7 GW of solar power and 3.5 GW of wind power, as well as 20 GWh/5 GW on-site battery storage, in Morocco. The transmission cable will consist of four cables. The first cable will be active in early 2027 and the other three should be launched in 2029. An agreement has been reached with the National Grid for two 1.8 GW connections at Alverdiscott in Devon.
Update April 21, 2022:
Submarine cable maker XLCC will build a factory in Hunterston, Scotland, and its first production will be for the Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project. Alverdiscott in North Devon will provide four 2,361-mile (3,800 km) submarine cables, the first phase between 2025 and 2027 linking wind and solar power generated in Morocco. This initiative will nearly double the current global production of HVDC cable manufacturing. The world’s longest submarine cables will require 90,000 metric tons of steel, and XLCC signed Britain’s Steel Charter in Parliament this week, in which it pledged to use British steel.
Why go all the way to Morocco to get electricity for the UK?
A response made on October 3, 2021, is given by a British news outlet:
At the beginning of October 2021, this project was estimated at 16 billion pounds sterling and aims to circumvent the fundamental problems of British wind and solar energy. Our winds are unpredictable and tend to blow at times of day when electricity demand is lowest. As it is for the British sun, well.
Meanwhile, in the Guelmim-Oued Noun region of Morocco, where the green power will be produced, reliable trade winds blow year-round. Equally practical, the wind speed at the Morocco site increases in the late afternoon and evening, coinciding with peak demand periods in the UK.
Débat de Haute Facture et Branché sur l’Électricité au Maroc !
Published by Said El Mansour Cherkaoui – Pourquoi, Comment et Quelles sont les Paramètres Internationaux?
The sun in Morocco also shines about 3,500 hours a year. By contrast, Britain averages only 1,500 hours of sunshine per year. And because the sun burns more intensely in North Africa, the solar panels each produce about three times as much electricity there as in the UK, even in winter when British need electricity the most for heating and the light.
The Xlinks Morocco-UK Power project consists of building an inordinate amount of new kits to generate and transport green energy. This means covering 1,500 km2 of Moroccan desert with solar panels, wind turbines and a huge battery storage unit. And copper or aluminum submarine cables, wrapped in polythene insulation, will carry the generated energy to Devon. Four such cables are required, each threaded along a shallow undersea route through Spain, Portugal and France to Alverdiscott.
In the village, two 1.8 GW voltage source converter stations, which look like massive Meccano skeletons, will be built. (1.8 GW is the planned generation capacity for the Norfolk Vanguard wind farm project in the North Sea, which would consist of 180 turbines up to 1,150 feet tall.)
An answer made on April 21, 2022, in a word, the Resilience that is given by the company that is responsible for this project, Xlinks .
Xlinks explains: Morocco benefits from ideal solar and wind resources, necessary to develop renewable projects that could guarantee adequate electricity production throughout the year. It has the third highest Global Horizontal Radiation (GHI) in North Africa, which is 20% higher than the Spanish GHI and more than twice that of the UK. In addition, the shortest winter day still offers more than 10 hours of sunshine. This helps deliver generation profiles that meet the needs of the UK electricity market, particularly during periods of low offshore wind generation.
Remote generation and interconnection between distant geographic regions with inversely correlated weather systems will be more effective in addressing supply and demand imbalances over longer periods of time.
Xlinks notes that solar panels generate about three times more electricity in Morocco than that produced in the UK. Additionally, solar panels in Morocco have a higher capacity to generate up to five times more electricity from January to March than those in the UK.
According to its promoters, this project should create nearly 10,000 jobs in Morocco, including 2,000 permanent jobs.
Africa-Morocco: Gaz Power and Europe
Contact Said El Mansour Cherkaoui: saidcherkaoui@triconsultingkyoto.com Website: https://triconsultingkyoto.com SAID EL MANSOUR CHERKAOUI – NETWORK OF PUBLIC MEDIA OCTOBER 5, 2021 Said El Mansour Cherkaoui Publications on Electricity in Morocco and the Relation of Africa with Europe Via Morocco for the Gas and Power Distribution https://triconsultingkyoto.com/?p=4991Moroccan Kingdom – United Kingdom: Electrical Link by Submarine Cable Updated on … Continue reading, Africa-Morocco: Gaz Power and Europe
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