Scottish Offshore Renewables Developers Worried over SHE’s Connection Delay

Developers of offshore renewable energy in Scotland are worried over delay in power connection between Orkney and Shetland Islands and the mainland, which was announced by SSE’s Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission(SHE) on December 20, Bloomberg informs.

Richard Yemm, founder and director of Pelamis Wave Power Ltd that has projects off both islands, is cited by the news site as saying that over two thirds of wave and tidal energy developments rely on these connections.

The Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission said in its final Transmission Projects Review: “There have been a number of changes to the construction programme which has been affected by: the securing of planning consents, land acquisition, the complex co-ordination of system outages across the suite of works, and, principally, delivery constraints in the global supply chain for subsea cables.

“Island links to Orkney and Shetland are also now currently scheduled for completion, subject to the challenges set out above, in 2018. Both projects have experienced challenges in securing planning consents and land acquisition, and will be subject to delivery constraints in the global supply chain for subsea cables. In addition, the Orkney link is challenged by further changes to the onshore landing arrangements and environmental constraints, which impacted on the proposed cable routing.”

The Scottish Government is disappointed by this delay and will discuss the matter with SHE, spokeswoman from the Government is quoted by Bloomberg as saying.

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Offshore WIND Staff, January 14, 2013; Image: britnd