Interconnectors
Checks on this page
Each feed is judged by the age of its newest data against its own timetable: “late” means the last check found nothing newer. Settlement period now: SP–.
Ten subsea and tunnel cables connect Great Britain to six countries. This page tracks what each one is doing right now — which way power is flowing, how much, and why price usually decides the direction.
Interconnector flows
INTOUTHH · half-hourlyNet position = Imports − Exports All flows are physical energy in the last 30 minutes.
Interconnector map
Live flows appear here once the figures have loaded.Dover Strait: IFA, ElecLink, BritNed and Nemo Link — figures load with the map.
Colour is direction this half hour ( importing, exporting, idle); width is megawatts. Cables join their landfalls, not their true routes, on a Mercator map, so nothing on it is a distance. Coastline: Natural Earth.
Net imports over the last 12 months
Each week’s average net flow · Elexon FUELHH, this site’s daily record to 8 Oct 2026GB was a net importer on 332 of the last 365 days, taking each day’s average flow.
Above the line GB imported on balance, below it exported. A week the record holds only part of is drawn lighter.
The ten links — capacity and age
Transmission Entry Capacity each way, NESO Interconnector Register, 1 September 2026 · each name opens the link’s own page| Link | Route | To GB (MW) | From GB (MW) | Since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IFA | France ↔ England | 1,988 | 1,988 | 1986 |
| IFA2 | France ↔ England | 1,100 | 1,150 | 2021 |
| ElecLink | France ↔ England | 1,000 | 1,050 | 2022 |
| BritNed | Netherlands ↔ England | 1,200 | 1,200 | 2011 |
| Nemo Link | Belgium ↔ England | 1,020 | 1,046 | 2019 |
| North Sea Link | Norway ↔ England | 1,400 | 1,480 | 2021 |
| Viking Link | Denmark ↔ England | 1,500 | 1,500 | 2023 |
| Greenlink | Ireland ↔ Wales | 504 | 524 | 2025 |
| East–West | Ireland ↔ Wales | 505 | 585 | 2012 |
| Moyle | Northern Ireland ↔ Scotland | 500 | 500 | 2001 |
Interconnectors in development
Awaiting consents or under construction · NESO Interconnector Register, 1 September 2026| Project | Route | To GB (MW) | From GB (MW) | TEC from | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NeuConnect | Germany ↔ Grain West, England | 1,400 | 1,470 | Aug 2026 now | Under construction |
| MARES | Ireland ↔ Bodelwyddan, Wales | 750 | 750 | Nov 2028 | Awaiting consents |
| Aquind | France ↔ Lovedean, England | 2,000 | 2,075 | Dec 2030 | Awaiting consents |
| FAB Link | France ↔ Exeter, England | 1,250 | 1,310 | Sept 2032 | Awaiting consents |
17 more projects (23,230 MW) are only scoping-stage applications, most never built — counted, not listed.
About these figures
Reading the flows · TEC and above 100% · not in this data · in development · sources
Reading the flows
Almost always, price. Power moves from the cheaper market to the dearer one, and the trader moving it keeps the difference. When GB prices are high — a still, cold evening — the links fill with imports; when GB wind is abundant and prices fall, the flows reverse. That is why the interconnector panel and the wind panel so often move together.
How that trade is arranged changed with Brexit, and the change is visible in the data. Before 2021 GB was part of the EU's Single Day-Ahead Coupling, where an algorithm set cross-border flows and prices together and capacity was allocated implicitly — buy the power, get the cable. GB now sits outside that arrangement, so capacity on most links is allocated explicitly: traders buy the right to use a cable in an auction, then separately buy the power, then nominate the flow.
⚠ One consequence is worth knowing, because it shows up as apparently irrational flows. Day-ahead capacity auctions on explicitly allocated links close before the day-ahead power markets they serve. A trader is therefore betting on tomorrow's price spread rather than responding to it — so a cable can run the "wrong" way, or sit part-empty while prices diverge, without anything being broken.
Two links are exceptions and behave differently for that reason. Capacity to Ireland is allocated through simultaneous intraday auctions, and capacity to Norway follows the Nord Pool day-ahead auction — so both track price more closely, and the Irish links in particular can reverse more abruptly than the continental ones.
Transmission Entry Capacity
The capacities on this page are Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC): each link's connection right, the most it is allowed to carry each way, from the NESO Interconnector Register, 1 September 2026, verified 1 September 2026; capacity is not published by Elexon. TEC is not the same as the capacity a link can trade or has available today: Moyle's is the same both ways though its firm export is lower, and IFA's four 500 MW poles can be partly out without the figure changing.
A link above 100% of capacity
It can happen on this page, and it is not an error in the feed or in the figure above it. The percentage compares the metered flow against the link's Transmission Entry Capacity in the direction it is running — a connection right, not a physical limit. Two things put a real flow above it:
- A connection right is not the cable's limit. A link's equipment can carry more than its TEC: IFA is rated at 2,000 MW against a TEC of 1,988 MW, so it can read just over 100%.
- The measurement point. The flow is metered at the GB boundary, and a cable loses energy along its length — so the figure at one end is not the figure at the other.
The opposite case matters more, and only one link states it plainly: Moyle's 500 MW is a technical rating, and its firm export capacity is considerably lower. A bar filling half that track may already be at the commercial limit. Where an operator publishes such a limit, this dashboard says so on the link's own detail.
Not in this data
- These are settlement-period values, not live meter readings. Elexon publishes INTOUTHH per half-hour settlement period, so an interconnector figure can lag the five-minute fuel mix by up to thirty minutes. The two panels on the dashboard are not disagreeing when they differ — they are describing different instants.
- Physical flow, not contracted position. What is shown is energy that moved. Traders' positions, capacity holdings and nominations are separate, and a link can be fully sold while flowing well below its capacity.
- Capacities are held here, not fetched. No key-free public endpoint publishes interconnector capacity, so the ten figures are recorded values with the date they were last verified. They are what the percentage and the capacity track are computed from.
- Northern Ireland is a separate system. Moyle connects GB to the all-island Irish market rather than to another GB region, which is why it appears here alongside the international links.
Links in development
The list of interconnectors in development is taken from the NESO Interconnector Register, 1 September 2026. It shows the projects past the scoping stage — awaiting consents or under construction. A further 17 projects, 23,230 MW between them, are at “scoping”: each is an application to connect. Together they are an application queue, not a build programme, and most entries in it are never built, so the page counts them rather than listing them. A project's TEC from date is when its connection right begins, not when power first flows; the two can be years apart.
How figures are marked. A figure with no mark is measured; an estimate is hatched; a forecast is dashed. A total or a share with the solar estimate inside it says so: incl. est. solar.
Sources
Flows are Elexon Insights INTOUTHH, the half-hourly interconnector outturn used in settlement. Link detail — capacity, route, converter technology and ownership — is compiled from each operator's own published material and from NESO, Elexon and public network registers. How the flows enter every other figure on this site is set out on the Methodology page; the licences the data carries are on the About page. Interconnector capacities and the links in development are from the NESO Interconnector Register, used under the NESO Open Data Licence. Supported by National Energy SO Open Data.