A power link between France and the UK which was damaged by a fire in September will not be full repaired for two years.
The National Grid dropped the news late last night in an update on its website.
It said that 'extensive work' was needed at the site in Sellindge, Kent, which put paid to the previous idea it could be fixed by next March.
Instead the IFA connector will not be fully operational and up to 2000MW capacity until October 2023.
The National Grid's update said: 'We have been able to reduce the outage time of 1000MW of capacity at the IFA interconnector so that it will come back to service on October 20, ahead of the October 23 date we had previously published.
The site in Sellindge, Kent, will not be fully operational for another two years, Grid reports
The news has raised the spectre of concern over how power will be brought into the UK
Following a detailed assessment on the 1000MW of capacity that is offline due to damage caused by a fire at our site in Sellindge in September, we need to carry out extensive work to safely return it to service.
'We will bring 500MW back to service from October 2022 through to May 2023. This will result in 1500MW of available capacity going into next Winter.
'We will then undertake further work in order to bring the full 2000MW back by October 2023.
'We are completely focused on getting IFA safely returned to service as soon as possible and ensuring we are able to support security of supply.'
It comes the week after the National Grid warned the supply of electricity to Britain this winter would be 'tight'.
A map showing the various electricity cables that bring in electricity to the UK from the rest of Europe. The IFA link is seen bottom right in green
This graphic shows how electricity is brought in from France via the 1FA link. Converter stations are needed to switch converts direct current to alternating current or the reverse, while the connector links it with the National Grid
