The fire at the National Grid site broke out just after midnight on Wednesday A key electricity cable between Britain and France has been shut down, sending wholesale energy prices soaring. National Grid said a fire and planned maintenance at a site near Ashford in Kent means the cable will be totally offline until 25 September. Half of its capacity, or one gigawatt (GW) of power, is expected to remain unavailable until late March 2022. On Wednesday, British electricity prices for the following day jumped by 19% to £475 per megawatt hour (MWh). The fire at the Interconnexion France-Angleterre (IFA) site broke out in the early hours of Wednesday. The site was evacuated and there were no reports of casualties. After the fire an electricity interconnector running under the English Channel was “not operating”, the National Grid said in a statement. Electricity interconnectors are high-voltage cables […]