‘Back our £25bn green energy project or we’ll take it overseas’, said the prseident of X-Links, Dave Lewis, to The Telegraph about the audacious plan to power millions of UK homes with cheap solar and wind power from Morocco
X-Links could decide to take the project to another country amid growing frustration over the time it is taking to get the green light from the Government, he claimed.
Dave Lewis has warned that prolonged bureaucracy could derail a scheme that promises to lower household bills, slash emissions and create thousands of jobs.
As chairman of X-Links, the company behind the project, he warned that “international investors won’t wait forever”.
Sir Dave said “there are people lining up and down the street” to provide the £8bn of funding needed, and when the company recently tested the debt markets for the remaining £17bn of financing, it was “significantly oversubscribed”, he added.
Under the company’s plans, solar and wind power generated in Morocco’s Saharan Tan-Tan region will be transported at hyper speed through 4,000km of hi-tech underwater cables to the Devon coast in less than a second.
“This is sub-second power. Literally, you switch a light on and it’s there,” Sir Dave said.
The scheme is expected to provide electricity for 9m homes and cut carbon emissions from the UK power sector by around 10pc, while also bringing down energy bills through a reduction in wholesale costs.