Stay informed with free updates
Simply sign up to the Renewable energy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.
The UK government has rejected a £24bn project to bring solar and wind power from the Sahara to the UK via the world’s longest subsea cable, due to security risks and doubts about its viability.
Backers of the Morocco-UK Power Project being developed by Xlinks believed that it could bring enough electricity from Morocco to supply more than 7mn homes — about 8 per cent of Britain’s power needs.
But the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero confirmed on Thursday that the government had “after careful consideration” decided not to support the project. “We are grateful to the project developers for their innovative proposal,” a spokesperson said.
Xlinks chair Sir Dave Lewis, former chief executive of Tesco, said the company was “hugely surprised and bitterly disappointed” by the decision. The project’s backers include French energy giant TotalEnergies and the UK’s Octopus Energy.
Ed Miliband, energy secretary, concluded that the project did not “stack up” and that it had too many “holes”, people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times earlier on Thursday. The decision was first reported by Sky News.
The department said the project presented “a high level of inherent risk, related to both delivery and security”. One official highlighted increasing geopolitical risk and the potential for pipeline and cable interference by foreign states.
Miliband was also concerned over the project’s value for money and lack of supply chain benefits for UK companies, they added. Ministers will instead focus on homegrown sources of renewable power.
Lewis said: “Ultimately, we have no choice but to accept DESNZ’s decision. We are now working to unlock the potential of the project and maximise its value for all parties in a different way.”
The previous Conservative government had encouraged the project and agreed in 2023 to declare it as being of “national significance”, which would have allowed it to streamline the planning process.
Under the plan, electricity from southern Morocco’s Guelmim-Oued Noun region would have been be supplied via cables running 3,800km under the sea to the tiny North Devon village of Alverdiscott, where it would be connected to the national grid.
It would have had generation capacity of 10.5 gigawatts, of which 7GW would come from solar and 3.5GW from wind.
The previous government believed the project “could play an important role in enabling an energy system that meets the UK’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions and the government’s objectives to create a secure, reliable and affordable energy supply for consumers”.
Xlinks had been negotiating with the government to secure a guaranteed fixed electricity price, known as a “contract for difference”. Such contracts are widely used to support renewable energy projects in the UK, helping to get the offshore wind industry off the ground.
Xlinks had suggested a fixed electricity price of £70-£80 per MWh in 2012 prices which equates to about £100-£115/MWh in today’s money. That is higher than the UK’s current day-ahead electricity price but lower than the fixed price awarded to the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project.
Industry experts had warned that the scheme would also face practical challenges ranging from the length and depths over which it would need to lay cable and transport electricity, and potential bureaucratic hurdles because of the number of jurisdictions it would need to cross.
