The Isle of Man to England Interconnector is a submarine power cable connecting the transmission system of the Manx Electricity Authority to that of Great Britain. With an undersea section of approximately 104 kilometres (65 mi), it is the longest AC undersea cable in the world. It was laid in 1999 between Bispham, Blackpool, England, and Douglas Head on the Isle of Man, commencing commercial operations in November 2000. It is capable of continuous operation of 40 MW at 90 kV.
The cable was manufactured in two parts: one section at BICC in Erith and the other at Pirelli Cables in Southampton.
Once completed, the cable ended the Isle of Man's dependence on locally-powered diesel generation. Power supplies to the island were further reinforced in 2003 by an 85-MW combined cycle gas turbine power station at Pulrose, in the capital, Douglas.
Famous quotes containing the words isle, man and/or england:
“She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“It is very rare that you meet with obstacles in this world which the humblest man has not faculties to surmount. It is true we may come to a perpendicular precipice, but we need not jump off, nor run our heads against it. A man may jump down his own cellar stairs, or dash his brains out against his chimney, if he is mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don’t know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk’s factory who experiment and learn how.... In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)