UK, Scotland / England: Prysmian and La Farga are introducing 100 % recycled copper into the Eastern Green Link 2 project, setting a new sustainability benchmark for high-voltage subsea cable infrastructure.
EGL2 is the UK’s largest electricity transmission project currently under construction. The 505 km, 2 GW HVDC link will connect Peterhead in northeast Scotland with Drax in North Yorkshire, England, carrying enough electricity to power around two million homes.
The project is being delivered as a joint venture by National Grid Electricity Transmission and SSEN Transmission. Prysmian is responsible for manufacturing and installing the cables.
For the cable conductor, Prysmian will use La Farga’s Genius 100 % recycled copper. According to the project partners, this will be the first HVDC cable project to use 100 % recycled copper supported by an Environmental Product Declaration, providing full traceability of the recycled material.
Around 10,000 t of recycled copper will be used in the EGL2 cables. The approach is expected to avoid nearly 56,675 t of CO₂ equivalent emissions compared with conventional primary copper.
The use of recycled copper is also estimated to reduce the overall carbon footprint of Prysmian’s scope of work on the project by 13 %.
The initiative has been enabled by Ofgem’s Sustainability Innovation Fund, awarded to the EGL2 project. The partners said the approach demonstrates how critical grid infrastructure can reduce environmental impact while maintaining the performance and reliability required for nationally significant transmission projects.
Source: Prysmian
