- BAM will deliver civil works for the Walpole converter station and is already supporting design and construction planning near Peterhead.
- National Grid is targeting a 2028 construction start and 2033 energisation, subject to consent. Ofgem is separately considering early funding.
- The link could reduce the cost of turning down Scottish wind generation, but its timetable leaves several years of congestion to manage.
National Grid Electricity Transmission has appointed BAM UK & Ireland to deliver civil engineering works for the Norfolk converter station on Eastern Green Link 3, a proposed 2 GW electricity link between Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and Walpole.
Mott MacDonald will lead civil and structural design for BAM on the southern package.
The appointment gives BAM a role at both ends of the project, which National Grid is developing with SSEN Transmission. Near Peterhead, BAM is providing early design and buildability support ahead of a main works award scheduled for 2027, according to Construction Enquirer. The value of the Walpole package is undisclosed.
The converter stations will connect the high-voltage direct-current cable to the alternating-current grid. National Grid and SSEN appointed Hitachi Energy to supply the converter technology and NKT to deliver the cable systems in March.
BAM and Hitachi are already working together on Eastern Green Link 2, which runs from Peterhead to Drax. That experience is key at Walpole because the civil works, equipment installation and cable connections must be designed and sequenced together.
Mott MacDonald’s European energy managing director, Claudio Tassistro, said the appointment “provides continuity at a critical stage of the project”, citing the designer’s previous involvement in EGL3 and experience with similar converter stations.
Planning and funding
National Grid submitted a joint development consent application for Eastern Green Links 3 and 4 on 30 October. The Planning Inspectorate has 28 days from submission to decide whether to accept the application for examination. National Grid’s published timetable envisages construction starting in 2028 and the link being energised in 2033, subject to consent.
Ofgem is consulting until 30 November on a second early construction funding application for EGL3. It covers land purchases, enabling works and procurement commitments. Early funding can keep orders and site preparation moving while the planning process runs. Ofgem has to weigh the value of that time against the risk that consumers bear costs that cannot be recovered if the project changes or falls through.
When the network cannot carry all the electricity generated in Scotland, the National Energy System Operator can pay wind farms to reduce output and pay generators elsewhere to increase it.
EGL3 would give more of that electricity a route south, but the saving will depend on which parts of the network are congested when it opens and how much generation and demand connect at either end.
For a wind farm due online before 2033, the prospect of more transmission capacity several years later does little for revenues lost to congestion in its early years. Storage and flexible demand can absorb some of that power if they are on the right side of a bottleneck, while NESO is developing contracts that let it manage some constraints without waiting for new lines.
The value of those measures will depend in part on how much wind connects before the cable is ready.
