The contract is in line with the Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Riis-Johansen and the British Minister of Energy & Climate Change’s Lord Hunt’s joint incitement to establish a future power connection between the two countries, issued earlier this year. The intention is to fight climate change and ensure security of power supply.

- A connection between Norway and Great Britain will be valuable both for Norway and UK. A future connection will facilitate generation of renewable energy, improve security of supply and contribute to value creation, Auke Lont CEO at Statnett says.

- This is a really exciting opportunity. Greater interconnection with Europe will be an important tool to help us balance the system with large quantities of variable wind generation in the UK, Nick Winser, National Grid’s Executive Director for Transmission  adds.

A future cable connection will be owned 50 % each by Statnett and NGIL. The pre-feasibility study carried out by the parties establishes that a cable link between Norway and Great Britain will be economically attractive and technologically feasible, also including nodal connections.

The contract which terminates January 2011, binds the parties to settle required key subjects before initiating the process of making a planning proposal and licence application to the authorities. These are subjects like landfall in UK, cable route and regulatory model acceptable for all parties. Landfall in Norway is set to Kvilldal in Rogaland.

A cable connection to the UK is one of several projects Statnett plans between Norway and Europe. Other connections are cables to Denmark and directly to the continental Europe.