SwePol Link – Poland–Sweden HVDC submarine power cable

SwePol Link is a cross-border, submarine high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) power connection linking the electricity systems of Poland and Sweden. The line can transmit 600 MW of power at 450 kV, and its total length is approximately 254 km, of which 238 km runs under the seabed of the Baltic Sea. The cable runs between the Stärnö peninsula near Karlshamn in Sweden and the locality of Wierzbięcin near Słupsk in Poland, where its submarine section ends at the Słupsk substation. The investor was SwePol Link AB, a company whose shareholders were the Swedish transmission operator Svenska Kraftnät, the Vattenfall group, and Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne (the Polish power grid company). The HVDC converter technology and the cable were supplied by ABB (a 1997 order worth approximately USD 260 million). The line was commissioned in 2000 after roughly a year and a half of construction (commercial operation began in August 2000). The estimated cost of building the connection was approximately SEK 2.7 billion. In August 2012, the assets of the SwePol Link companies were sold to the national transmission operators: the Polish part went to PSE and the Swedish part to Svenska Kraftnät, after which it was integrated into the respective national transmission networks.