THERE is to be a new subsea power connection from Ayrshire to the Kintyre Peninsula, where along with Arran thousands of homes were without power for four days due to snowstorms in March.
Scottish Hydro Electric (SHE) Transmission says it will spend over £200 million to upgrade the electricity transmission network between Kintyre and Hunterston after receiving positive feedback from the industry regulator, Ofgem.
The upgrade will release up to 150MW of additional grid capacity for renewable projects signalling a significant boost for the Kintyre economy. The upgrade will involve installation of a twin subsea cable link from a new substation called Crossaig to Hunterston.
The upgrade will also include a new 13.5km section of tower line between Crossaig and the existing substation at Carradale, which will largely follow the existing route. Once construction is complete, the old tower line will be removed.
This link has been planned for a number of years in order to connect renewable energy in the area. However, the project has the added benefit of providing an alternative source of power from the mainland which will increase the resilience of the network.
David Gardner, director of transmission for SSE, said: "The announcement from Ofgem signals another significant step in our plans to reinforce the transmission infrastructure throughout Scotland.
"Along with completion of key projects within our approved budget of £1.4bn, this project demonstrates that we are gaining momentum on our capital expenditure programme which will connect significant amounts of renewable energy to the grid; contributing to energy security, economic growth and decarbonisation of electricity generation."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article