The UK’s largest-ever single power transmission project, a £4.3 billion, 505 km high‑voltage direct current (HVDC) “electricity superhighway” linking Peterhead in Aberdeenshire to Drax in North Yorkshire has now reached its Stage 4: Construction Phase, following earlier project assessment, early development, and refinement stages.
*Capacity: Up to 2 GW (enough to power ~2 million homes)
*Route: ~436 km subsea HVDC cable, plus onshore underground cables and two converter stations
*Target: Operational in 2029
Engineering teams have been deployed for two years now, with major work underway at both ends and along the cable routes. At Peterhead (Scotland) steel frames have been created for the first converter building and AC hall complete. Transformer building concrete works have been completed with cladding ongoing. Also completed are horizontal directional drilling works under the U66 road to install ducts for the new 400 kV link to the existing Peterhead Substation.
In Yorkshire 70 km of land has been prepared with over 25 km of haul roads, 8 km of trenching, and nine horizontal directional drilling operations completed since August 2025
Offshore subsea cable has been manufactured with and installation planning ongoing. Marine engineering surveys and route preparation is in progress Civil, environmental, and archaeological works are completing to connect the new stations and cables into the existing AC transmission network.
SSEN Transmission’s Community Liaison Managers are maintaining open dialogue with local stakeholders, including a newly launched North Aberdeenshire Local Fund to support communities near the infrastructure. EGL2 is actively in its main construction phase, with converter stations, onshore/offshore cable works, and grid integration all progressing. The project remains on track for 2029 commissioning, delivering one of the UK’s most significant clean‑energy transmission upgrades
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