[3][4] In November 2021, National Grid and ScottishPower agreed to pay a penalty of £158 million, after an Ofgem investigation determined these delays had increased consumer bills by limiting the amount of renewable power that could be sent from Scotland to the south of the UK.

For the given distance, it was necessary to use a DC transmission technology for a subsea route, as the capacitive current required for an AC connection would be too high.

Due to the proximity of the converter stations to the coastline, a decision was taken to host electrical infrastructure within built structures in order to reduce the effects of the coastal air on the equipment.

The cables are spaced apart to minimise thermal interference, but not so far as to materially impact any marine life which navigates using the magnetic field of the Earth.

The link has suffered a number of outages due to cable faults, which typically take several weeks to locate and fix: