BAM Awarded Construction Contract for Southern Converter Station of UK EGL3 Subsea Power Transmission Project

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On November 9, UK National Grid Electricity Transmission awarded the construction contract for the southern converter station of the Eastern Green Link 3 (EGL3) high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission project to the UK and Ireland business unit of Royal BAM Group of the Netherlands. The project is located at Walpole, Norfolk, England, and is part of a 2 GW subsea transmission project connecting Peterhead, Scotland, with eastern England. BAM will undertake the civil construction works for the southern converter station, with Mott MacDonald serving as lead designer for civil and structural engineering. The project has now entered the stage of confirming the construction partner and advancing subsequent design.

EGL3 is jointly developed by UK National Grid Electricity Transmission and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission (SSEN Transmission), and is planned to connect Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with Walpole, Norfolk, England, via subsea and underground HVDC cables. According to the project plan published by National Grid, approximately 436 km of HVDC subsea cable is planned for the English offshore section, making landfall north of Anderby Creek in Lincolnshire, and the southern converter station will then connect via approximately 5 km of underground high-voltage alternating current (HVAC) cable to the planned 400 kV Walpole B substation.

BAM will be responsible for the civil engineering works of the southern converter station at Walpole, while Mott MacDonald will undertake the related civil and structural design work. The two parties have previously collaborated on UK HVDC transmission infrastructure projects, and this contract will continue their engineering design and construction collaboration. The southern converter station is a key facility for connecting the EGL3 subsea DC transmission system to the English AC grid, and its construction arrangements will be coordinated with converter equipment installation, cable connection, and subsequent system commissioning.

This award gives BAM civil engineering tasks related to both the northern and southern converter stations of EGL3. On June 26, 2026, SSEN Transmission commissioned BAM to participate in early contractor involvement work for the northern converter station near Peterhead, Scotland, including engineering design support, constructability assessment, and related civil scheme studies. The subsequent detailed design and construction contracts for buildings, roads, drainage, and other works at the northern project are planned to enter the next stage in 2027.

The main suppliers for EGL3's HVDC converter equipment and cable systems were confirmed in March 2026. Hitachi Energy is responsible for delivering the technical systems for the HVDC converter stations at both ends, and NKT of Denmark is responsible for the subsea and underground cable systems, with the two contracts totaling nearly GBP 3 billion. The scope BAM has been awarded this time is the construction of the southern converter station, which falls under a different scope of works from the previously signed supply contracts for converter equipment and cable systems.

UK National Grid submitted a joint development consent application on October 30, 2026, for the English sections of EGL3 and EGL4, and construction of the southern converter station remains subject to the corresponding approval procedures. EGL3 is planned to have a transmission capacity of 2 GW and is expected, once completed, to transmit electricity equivalent to the demand of approximately 2 million households. The project is part of UK National Grid's "Great Grid Upgrade" program.