LONDON (Reuters) - Belgium's Elia (BR:ELI) and Britain's National Grid (L:NG) have awarded two contracts jointly worth roughly 500 million euros ($558.35 million) to build the first power trade cable between Britain and Belgium to Siemens (DE:SIEGn) and a subsidiary of Sumitomo Electric Industries (T:5802).
Siemens will build and maintain the converter stations needed to transport the electricity, while Sumitomo Electric's J-Power Systems will manufacture and lay the 140-kilometre long subsea cable.
Construction work on the 1,000-megawatt project is expected to start later this year and the interconnector is set to start operating in 2019.
The so-called NEMO link will be the first electricity import-export cable to connect Britain and Belgium and is supported by financing from the European Commission as it is deemed a project of common interest to member states.
Network operators Elia and National Grid made a final investment decision to build the project in late February.
($1 = 0.8955 euros)