It may have caught your attention that there has been a recent stream of announcements in relation to new subsea cable projects around the coast of Scotland and the UK.

Just in case you aren’t reading the same exciting news as me, last week the energy regulator Ofgem announced approval of a new 142 kilometre interconnector between Hunterston in Ayrshire to Kilroot in Northern Ireland, delivering additional electricity capacity to power around 700,000 homes.

This was just one of five subsea cable projects announced on the same day by Ofgem and comes just a few months after Ofgem fast-tracked approval of the UK’s largest subsea connector. The Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) will provide a link from Peterhead to East Yorkshire, a distance of nearly 500 kilometres with a capacity of up to two million homes' worth of energy.

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If those sound like a lot of work and likely a lot of money, your instincts would be correct. EGL2 is a £4.3 billion project alone, and it’s worth noting that for the five new connectors announced last week, the regulator initially refused approval because they are set to add between £2 and £5 a year to energy bills from 2030 to 2035.

Against the need to hold closely to the aim of affordable bills for homes and........

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