Major Outage

During its operational life from 1961 to the mid‑1980s, the 160 MW HVDC Cross-Channel link between Lydd in Kent and Échinghen near Boulogne-sur-Mer suffered frequent unplanned outages, as its surface-laid submarine cable was repeatedly taken out of service due to damage from fishing trawls and anchors, and its aging mercury-arc valve equipment became increasingly prone to failures from valve wear. These recurring loss-of-service events highlighted reliability limitations of the original mercury‑arc and surface‑laid cable design and contributed to the eventual decision to replace the scheme with a higher-capacity thyristor-based interconnector.