UK-based Global InterConnection Group (GIG) has floated on the Euronext Amsterdam stock market as it looks to develop an undersea interconnector between the UK and Iceland and build a cable factory near Middlesbrough.
GIG, which has eschewed a London listing despite its head office being based in the Square Mile, is a manufacturer and operator of undersea interconnections, with a contract agreed with National Grid PLC (LSE:NG.) for the 1,708km Iceland interconnector it is developing with an intended connection in 2028/29.
The listing involved it reversing into a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Disruptive Capital Acquisition Co (DCAC), and the adoption of a new group name to encompass its three operating businesses: Advanced Cables, Atlantic SuperConnection (ASC Energy) and Global InterConnection Group Services.
Advanced Cables is developing a 1,500km-a-year capacity high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable manufacturing and armouring facility in Teesside, which it said is due to come into full operation in 2025, with an aluminium stranding factory and a testing centre also planned to be built in Iceland.
Its ASC Energy arm is developing the Iceland bi-pole interconnector, which has a planned capacity of up to 1.8GW and by connecting to markets with very different supply-demand dynamics is expected to generate "more predictable revenues underpinned by long-term power purchase agreements, typically with prices linked to UK inflation rates".
Edmund Truell, executive chairman at GIG, said: "Armed with the greater profile and access to capital markets afforded by a listing, we believe we are well-positioned to execute on our strategy to build Global InterConnection Group into a world-leading interconnection player.
“Governments and grid operators are realising that international grid interconnectivity is essential to both energy security and energy transition."
He said interconnectors are already “key to keeping the lights on”, with the 720km North Sea Link currently allowing surplus intermittent wind power to be exported from the UK to Norway to generate pumped storage hydro-electric batteries.
In April, the UK and the Netherlands also agreed to build a 1.8GW interconnector that will also give both countries access to offshore wind farms in the North Sea that are due to come on stream in the early 2030s.
“At scale and with less energy loss than batteries or via current hydrogen technologies when the wind is not blowing in the North Sea, the hydro power can be sent back to the UK, topped up by either French nuclear power or Irish wind,” he trumpeted.
DGAC, which listed in 2021, had been planning to merge with Saxo Bank but the deal was ditched last year.