The UK government approved Sea Link on Friday, a 2 gigawatt undersea electricity connection between Suffolk and Kent developed by National Grid and running primarily offshore. The department says the link can carry enough electricity for the equivalent of 2 million homes and will reduce the need to pay generators to switch off when the network cannot carry their output. National Grid will deliver community funds of over 1 million pounds each for Kent and Suffolk under the government’s community benefits scheme.
The same decisions approved two solar farms: Great North Road Solar and Biodiversity Park near Newark, at 800 megawatts the joint largest in the country by generating capacity, and Frodsham Solar in Cheshire, which combines panels with battery storage. The department says the decisions bring the number of nationally significant clean energy projects approved since July 2024 to 39.