First cables planned to connect Spain and France

Two high-voltage direct current (HVDC) links, each with a 1000MW capacity, will stretch for 300km under the sea, ’improving the safety, stability and quality of electricity supply between the two countries and also with the rest of Europe’, Prysmian says. Each link will consist of two cables, and at each end a converter station will be installed – one at Cubnezais in France, the other in Gatika in Spain.

In a notice issued by INELFE, a 50:50 joint venture between the Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica and French grid operator Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE), Prysmian was notified that it had been selected as one of the preferred bidders for the Biscay Gulf interconnection. 

The underwater section will reach for 300km between the Spanish Basque coast and the French Médoc coast, with a short underground section avoiding the submarine Capbreton canyon, INELFE has said. The cables in the underground sections will be laid in trenches 1m apart then completely covered, and connected to the submarine cables by a junction chamber.

INELFE’s timeline is that construction will be completed by 2026, and the cables will be commissioned in 2027.