A Balfour Beatty joint venture (JV) has won a £185 million contract to install a major electricity cable through the Channel Tunnel.

The company will work alongside Prysmian Group to develop a 65km electricity cable between France and Great Britain, enhancing both energy capacity and security. Up to 300 people will be employed by the development.

The ElecLink interconnector will have a 1GW capacity and provide enough power for over 1.65 million homes each year. In addition, the scheme could potentially support the development of Europe's 'super grid', a scheme which aims to lower energy costs by allowing the entire region to share costs of creating and distributing energy.


The scope of Balfour Beatty's work, value at over £118m, will see the company complete a world first by installing a new High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnector in a live rail tunnel environment.

The scheme will involve laying two 50km cables through the North tunnel and connecting them to converter stations in Northern France and Kent. Prysmian Group will be responsible for the design and manufacture of the 320kV cabling and jointing services.

In addition, Balfour Beatty will use offsite jointing facilities in Calais and Folkestone to assemble 2.5km sections of cable, as well as using computer modelling to model the build in a virtual environment.

Ian Currie, Managing Director for Power Transmission and Distribution, said: “Balfour Beatty’s expertise as an international infrastructure group has enabled us to create innovative solutions to fulfil the requirements of this project. As global leaders we have been trusted with the first ever installation of a High Voltage Direct Current interconnector in a live rail tunnel environment. We will draw on our extensive experience of cable tunnel engineering projects, including the London Power Tunnels electricity superhighway, to deliver the project successfully."

(LM/MH)