Oil major TotalEnergies has paid £20 million (€23 million) to buy a minority stake in Xlinks, which aims to carry gigawatt-scale wind and solar from Africa to the UK via subsea cables.
Xlinks aims to build 11.5GW of wind and solar capacity in Morocco and deliver power to the UK through high-voltage direct current subsea cables. The project would also be coupled with large battery storage.
TotalEnerghies joins UK utility Octopus Energy and Abu Dhabi National Energy Company as investors in Xlinks.
Xlinks explained that it hopes to benefit from TotalEnergies’ experience in developing multi-billion dollar energy projects.
The UK government recently classified the project as a nationally significant infrastructure project, enabling it to bypass normal permitting rules. Meanwhile, the UK department for energy security and net zero is developing an outline business case for the project, which would set out its preliminary thoughts on the project.
Source: Windpowermonthly
