The Government has fun a renewable energy project of 25 billion sterling pounds which has promised to import enough solar and wind energy from Morocco to meet almost a tenth of the demand for electricity of the United Kingdom.
Sky News has learned that Ed Miliband, energy security and net secretary Zero, decided not to make official negotiations with Xlinks, a private company, approximately a 25 -year price guarantee agreement.
A ministerial statement should be made confirming the decision later Thursday.
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The government’s transition to Snub XLinks after prolonged talks with the company will surprise the energy industry leaders given the company’s commitment to provide large quantities of power at a price of about half of that which will be generated by new nuclear power plants.
XLINKS, chaired by the former director general of Tesco, Sir Dave Lewis, had sought to agree on a 25 -year contract for the difference with the Ministry of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), which would have guaranteed a price for the power generated by the project.
An initiate of Whitehall said that her decision was partly motivated by the desire to focus on “local” energy supplies – an affirmation questioned by industry sources.
Sir Dave told Sunday Telegraph earlier this year that Xlinks would concentrate on another country if the British government does not agree to support the project.
The company should now explore other commercial opportunities.
XLinks had not sought taxpayer financing for this, and said it could help resolve the “intermittent problem” of variable supply to British households and companies.
The reduction in manufacturers’ energy costs was the centerpiece of the government’s industrial strategy launched earlier this week.
Sources have indicated that the XLinks construction market financing market test of a 4,000 -kilometer cable between Morocco and the Devon coast had been considerably overwritten.
XLINKS investors include the total, the French energy giant, the company having collected around 100 million pounds of development funding so far.
The company said that it would be able to deliver energy to £ 70 to megawatt, that is considerably lower than that of new nuclear power plants such as that of Sizewell C in Suffolk to which the government allocated more than 14 billion pounds sterling of taxpayers at the beginning of the month.
It was not clear if the growing risk of underwater sabotage was one of the factors behind the government’s decision not to engage more with Xlinks.
In an interview with Sky News in 2022, Sir Dave said that Xlinks had a low geopolitical risk due to the secular commercial relationship with Morocco and the ambitions of the North African country to develop the energy sector as part of its exports.
“The Moroccan government has recognized that exporting green (energy) is a very important part of their economic plan in the future, so they have an export strategy,” he said at the time.
“The Sahara desert is probably one of the best places in the world to generate renewable energies from … so you have a very long production period.
“And if you capture this energy and add a little storage of batteries, you can generate energy to cover a little more than 20 hours a day, making it a fantastic partner for the United Kingdom.”
The former Tesco chief added that the quality of modern high tension cables meant that energy could now be transported “over very long distances with very, very few losses”.
Sir Dave said that the technological risks associated with the project were relatively small, citing examples of much longer scheduled cable links elsewhere in the world.
“The advantage here is that it is a proven technology with a reliable partner very committed with a cost profile … that we can never (be able) to correspond to the United Kingdom,” he said.
A spokesperson for Desnz said he had not commented on speculation, while Xlinks refused to comment on Thursday.