Did you know that Brunel’s Great Eastern ship laid the first transatlantic cable, connecting Europe to the USA? Since then comms and energy transfer have developed into complex systems where one country can often depend on another to keep the lights on. Like France’s nuclear power grid which helps plug gaps when wind or solar doesn’t deliver in certain weather conditions. OK now add on digital payments systems, ID verification and cashless point of sale devices, which all need a stable power supply from a National Grid. Suddenly the downside for companies is huge when the interconnector thingy goes down, or is sabotaged.
This isn’t all satellite tech either, there are still old school cables carrying power, or data. Plus we have a growing data center sector, which again need power to function safely, plus a range of different cables used as interconnectors.
Here’s the news from Renew Risk who have seen these scenarios;
Renew Risk, a leading provider of risk analytics for renewable energy assets, today announced the launch of its Interconnector Risk Module. Developed in collaboration with Aviva, the enhancement is dedicated to helping assess the risks interconnectors face and improve how insurers, developers and investors understand and price them.
Interconnector exposure data is also being added to Renew Risk’s Industry Exposure Database (IED), giving underwriters and analysts a further route to access asset-level data directly. Together these enhancements demonstrate Renew Risk’s ability to develop and deploy new modelling capabilities at pace, working with the insurance industry to meet evolving market demand.
The module enables:
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Asset-specific risk assessment, recognising the unique characteristics of individual interconnectors.
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Enhanced cable exposure modelling, moving beyond generic assumptions.
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Cross-border risk analysis, reflecting the complexities of assets that span multiple countries and environments.
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Greater confidence in underwriting and investment decisions, through more detailed and transparent risk insights.
As investment in renewable energy accelerates, interconnectors are becoming increasingly important to energy security. By enabling electricity to flow across borders, they balance fluctuations in renewable energy generation, strengthen grid resilience and support system stability. Interconnectors have also played an important role in maintaining electricity supplies during major outages and periods of energy disruption across Europe, highlighting their growing importance to the continent’s energy resilience.
This model enhancement comes at a pivotal time, as the industry’s project pipeline reflects a new era of scale for interconnector infrastructure. While Viking Link currently stands as the world’s longest onshore and subsea power interconnector at 765 km, ambitious proposals such as Xlinks‘ 4,000 km Morocco–UK connection would dwarf it. As projects grow longer, larger, and more complex, so do the technical and operational risks they must withstand, reinforcing the need for more nuanced risk modelling.
Risk varies substantially between interconnectors and factors such as route length, burial depth, seabed conditions, installation method and geographical location all influence exposure. Yet conventional risk assessments have remained a “finger in the wind” exercise, leaving developers, insurers and investors without an accurate understanding of how risk should be priced. This lack of visibility could lead to inaccurate pricing and reduced confidence in underwriting and investment decisions, underlining the need for more sophisticated, asset-specific modelling. In some cases, losses are so significant that developers would have been better off not purchasing insurance at all.
Developed as an add-on to Renew Risk’s UK & Ireland Windstorm Model (UKWS) and European Windstorm Model (EUWS), the new module addresses a rapidly expanding segment of Europe’s energy infrastructure market.
Dr Joshua Macabuag OBE, Co-Founder & CEO, Renew Risk said:
“Interconnectors are becoming some of the most important assets in Europe’s renewable energy system, yet the industry has been pricing many of them using models never designed for the complexity we’re seeing today. That creates inefficiencies throughout the market, from insurance pricing to investment decisions and project financing.
By creating a dedicated interconnector risk module, we’re giving stakeholders the ability to assess assets based on actual characteristics rather than broad assumptions. Better risk intelligence doesn’t just improve underwriting outcomes; it has the potential to reduce the overall cost of risk for well-designed projects, unlock additional insurance capacity and ultimately lower the cost of delivering critical energy infrastructure.”
Nicholas Evans, Deputy Head of Renewable Energy at Aviva said:
“As interconnectors become increasingly critical to the energy transition, the industry needs a more sophisticated way to assess and price their risks. By working with Renew Risk, we’ve helped develop a solution that moves beyond broad assumptions and provides a clearer understanding of risk at an asset level, supporting better decisions across the market.”
Dr Ingrid Charvet, Head of Model Delivery and Innovation, Renew Risk:
“Interconnectors are inherently complex assets because a single cable can pass through multiple environments, each with its own risk profile. Factors such as route length, seabed conditions, burial depth and installation method can all influence the likelihood of damage, yet these differences have not always been reflected in traditional assessment approaches.
We developed this module to better quantify those variations more accurately, providing insurers, developers and investors with a clearer understanding of where risk exists and how it should be managed.”
The launch demonstrates Renew Risk’s ability to rapidly expand its modelling capabilities in response to evolving market needs, further strengthening the company’s portfolio of specialist renewable energy risk models which improve risk transparency, unlock insurance capacity and accelerate the deployment of clean energy infrastructure worldwide.
The module has also been developed in collaboration with the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, which updated its platform to support “countryless” location codes specifically to accommodate cross-border assets. This enables interconnector risk data to integrate seamlessly into insurer’s existing catastrophe modelling workflows.
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