There are four electricity interconnectors linking Great Britain (GB) to Ireland and continental Europe with a transmission capacity of 4 GW. These links represents approximately 5% of the GB’s electricity generation capacity.
The four interconnectors link GB to other electricity markets and provide a transmission capacity for the electricity to flow from high price region to a low price region.
Recently I pulled electricity generation data for the year 2016 from the Elexon portal. I wanted to see the correlation between different generation types, especially how each generation influences the interconnector flows.
Figure 1 shows the correlation matrix of different generation types for the year 2016. The highest positive correlation exists between generation from the onshore and offshore wind farms-no surprise there. There is a strong positive correlation between generation from the two different hydro generation types.
In Figure 1, ‘INTIRL’ represents the 500MW interconnector between South Ayrshire (Scotland) to Ballycronan (Northern Ireland), where as ‘INTEW’ represents a 500MW interconnector between County Dubline (Republic of Ireland) and Prestatyn (Wales). A positive correlation exists between the interconnector flows to Ireland.This is expected as the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland operates as a single electricity market.
Waqquas Bukhsh 