Twelve football pitches in size and coming to the Boston area as part of a £1.8b international green energy scheme

Construction has started on a converter station at Donington Northorpe as part the Viking Link energy scheme.

The ambitious project is a joint enterprise between National Grid Ventures, part of National Grid, and the Danish electricity system owner and operator, Energinet.

It involves a 765km subsea and underground cable being laid between the two nations, which once operational will supply the UK with enough renewable energy to power 1.5 million homes.

The converter station – which will measure 300m2, the equivalent of about 12 football pitches – is needed to covert electricity between alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). AC is used in each country’s transmission system, while DC is used for sending the electricity along the subsea cables.

In July, work started on an access infrastructure for the site; this is now ready for use by construction traffic.

Head of transmission solutions at Siemens Energy UK&I, the lead contractor in the project, Mark Pilling, said: “Viking Link will play a vital role in the UK’s future energy system allowing the transmission of power with Denmark. This will enable further decarbonisation of the UK’s electricity supplies and help reach net zero.”

He continued: “This next stage of construction will see the heart of the project begin to take shape, with the converter station housing the equipment needed to transmit this power safely and efficiently.”