UK-France power link to run tests before start-up -Britain's National Grid

(Reuters) - Britain's National Grid's 2-gigawatt power link with France, the IFA1 interconnector, will carry out system tests between Jan. 24 and Jan. 27 before each side returns to service, Elexon Remit data showed on Monday.

"During the period, intermittent tests will be carried out up to 500 megawatts (MW) in both directions" until the power link is "commercially available at 2000 MW," the National Grid's notice said.

The IFA1 interconnector, which was damaged by a 2021 fire that affected half its capacity, was slated to fully return to service by December last year, but the outage was later extended.

The National Grid has four operational interconnectors - two in France (IFA1 and IFA2), one to the Netherlands (BritNed) and another one in Belgium (Nemo Link).

(Reporting by Seher Dareen and Deep Vakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese and Leslie Adler)