About Best Paths

The directory on this site follows 61 of Europe’s major power links, from the 51 km ElecLink cable inside the Channel Tunnel to the 765 km Viking Link between Lincolnshire and Jutland, the longest in service, and the 970 km Tyrrhenian Link now being built. Best Paths is an editorial reference about those links and the grid they belong to: what each one connects, how it works, who runs it and what it can carry.

What the site covers

The core of the site is the directory of Europe’s interconnectors, with a map and one page per link. Each page gives the route, capacity, voltage, technology, operators and status, and explains what the link changes for the two systems at either end. Internal links that matter at European scale, such as the long HVDC cables that carry Scottish wind south or Germany’s SuedLink, are included as well.

Around the directory sit the explainers. The HVDC guide covers high-voltage direct current: why it is used under the sea, how converter stations work, and where the technology still has limits. The guides deal with subsea cables, grid congestion, energy islands, the synchronisation of the Baltic states and the Iberian blackout of April 2025. The glossary defines the terms that come up along the way, from ampacity to voltage source converters.

The site also keeps the record of BEST PATHS, the research and demonstration project funded by the European Union from 2014 to 2018. Its five demonstrations looked at HVDC links for offshore wind, interoperability between converters from different manufacturers, the upgrade of multi-terminal HVDC systems, the repowering of existing AC lines, and superconducting cables. The project pages describe what it set out to do, who took part and what its results were, alongside its news, events and publications.

Where the figures come from

Every figure on a link page comes from a source that is listed on that page. The first choice is the operator of the link or the transmission system operator on each side. After that come the manufacturers of the converters and cables, ENTSO-E, the European Commission and its agencies, and the European Investment Bank. Where published sources disagree, for example on the exact length of a cable, the directory takes the figure from the most direct source, usually the operator.

Figures carry the month in which they were last checked. Planned and under-construction links change often: dates slip, capacities are revised and routes move. Those pages are checked again whenever an operator or a regulator publishes new information, and the date shown moves with them.

Numbers that no source supports are left out. A blank is more useful to a reader than a guess.

Who writes it

Best Paths is written and edited by a small editorial team. Articles carry no bylines; the site speaks with one voice, and every page is judged by its sources, not by the name above it. The explainers aim to be precise enough for an engineering student and plain enough for anyone who has wondered why a cable to Norway made the evening news.