Harry Potter devotees were furious after discovering that a £430 million project, worth more than $580 million, had originally been set to cross the spot marked as Dobby’s resting place.
The 190-kilometer Greenlink power connection was planned to link Ireland’s grid with the UK’s National Grid, running between County Wexford and Freshwater West in Pembrokeshire. The interconnector is capable of transferring 500 megawatts of power between the two countries and became operational in January 2025.
For many fans, Freshwater West is best known as the home of Dobby’s ‘grave’. In Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, the house elf dies and is buried at the beach. The location was used for filming Dobby’s death scene in the 2010 movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
Since then, the area has become a real-world tribute to the character. Visitors have left a mound of stones there, including one bearing the words ‘Here lies Dobby a free elf’, along with wooden sticks decorated with socks and gloves in reference to the series rule that a house elf is freed when given clothing by its master.
Dobby had served the Malfoy family and endured their cruelty until Harry helped bring about the moment Lucius gave him a sock, granting him freedom.
When fans learned the cable would pass through the beach area associated with the memorial, the backlash became so intense that the route was changed.
Simon Ludlam, chief executive of advisory firm Etchea Energy, discussed the reaction during an appearance on The Energy Revolution podcast and said a BBC interview helped bring the issue to wider attention.
“Once we’d agreed with all the authorities, with all the landowners and the people who own the beach, the local residents, how we’d make landfall, I remember BBC Wales said, ‘Could you come down and just do a quick thing,'” he recalled, per The Independent.
According to Ludlam, the interview was followed by hundreds of calls from Potter fans.
“My colleague Tom, who works in permitting, said, ‘Simon, we’re going to have to respond to these calls,'” Ludlam went on. “And I said, ‘well, Tom, I’m super busy.’ And he goes, ‘no, no, we really have to respond to this.'”
Ludlam said he initially had no idea who Dobby was, but quickly found out after being told it was a ‘very, very serious’ issue.
“So we got back with the planners and discussed exactly how to reroute the cable so we wouldn’t go anymore into Dobby’s grave,” Ludlam continued.
“And a lot of people were very happy about that and, you know, the project’s now going and Dobby’s happy.”
Ludlam noted that in the process of rerouting, they were able to avoid not only the memorial but also nearby Bronze Age archaeological remains.
The cable has been operating since January 2025 and is capable of supplying power to as many as 380,000 homes, strengthening energy security and enabling the transfer of renewable energy between the two countries.