BritNed: Electricity cable between Great Britain and The Netherlands

The company

BritNed Development Ltd. is a joint venture of British energy company National Grid and NLink International, a subsidiary of TenneT Holding B.V. and is responsible for the operational and technical management of the BritNed cable, the first electricity connection between The Netherlands and Great Britain. This 1000MW high voltage connection has a length of 260 kilometres and runs from the Isle of Grain (Kent, Great Britain) to Maasvlakte (near Rotterdam, The Netherlands). The BritNed interconnector can transmit power in both directions and is ultimately driven by price differentials between the two power markets. 

Objectives

This connection forms part of a major programme of investments by National Grid and TenneT to ensure a continuing security and diversity of supply helping to facilitate low carbon generation. The interconnector contributes to integrating European markets, providing greater import and export opportunities.

Trading

As of 2011 is the BritNed-cable available for trading. Market participants have access to the interconnector capacity through a combination of explicit and implicit auctions. Power flows will be decided by companies that trade on BritNed and will be driven by their decisions on factors such as supply, demand, prices in each market. The implicit auctions are facilitated by our partner, APX-ENDEX. Explicit auctions are carried out by BritNed Development Ltd. via its own auction system Kingdom®. 
This approach allows market parties a real choice in how they bid on capacity. By this BritNed contributes to a greater transparency on European electricity markets.

Merchant cable

BritNed is a merchant, or 'non-socialised' interconnector, funded and operated independently from National Grid and TenneT's regulated businesses. This means that profits and exploitation takes place on a commercial basis, separately from the regulated activities of National Grid and TenneT. Both parties are fully responsible for the investment and the risks.

Visit http://www.britned.com/ for more information or watch the video Powering Europe's Future

BritNed route