Cables consultation
TEN people turned up to a consultation in Shetland on Thursday about whether subsea electricity cables connecting Scottish islands should be buried at a potential cost to consumers of £300 million.
Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution Ltd (SHEPD) welcomed a handful of visitors to Shetland Museum and Archives as part of their six week consultation.
The company responsible for the electricity network in the northern half of Scotland said the Scottish government’s new National Plan requires subsea cables to be buried.
However the energy regulator Ofgem would have to agree to SHEPD spending such a large sum of money, which customers in the north would have to ultimately pay for in their bills.
To balance the economic, safety and wider benefits of “to bury, or not to bury”, the company is conducting a cost benefit analysis of the two methods of installing cables.
There are around 111 cables connecting Scotland’s 59 inhabited islands to the electricity grid.
SHEPD has said the cost of burying the cables could push the price up around seven fold from £44 million over eight years.
A SHEPD spokesman said the consultation had no implications for the planned subsea interconnector for the Viking Wind Farm, which will have to be buried anyway if it goes ahead.
He added that prime minister David Cameron’s announcement last year that the UK as a whole would share the extra cost of subsidising Shetland’s electricity generation had yet to come into force.
However when they do these changes will only cover the cost of replacing the Lerwick power station and not impact on the island cable network, which must still be paid for by customers in the north.
Meanwhile a Scottish government spokesman said national policy does not mean all marine electricity cables should be buried.
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“Scotland’s National Marine Plan is clear that decisions concerning the protection of subsea cable should be reached on a case-by-case basis, where the costs involved are carefully weighed up against the environmental impact and safety risks including dangerous and potentially deadly snagging hazards for fishermen,” he said.
More details of the consultation, which closes on 13 October, can be found at http://news.ssepd.co.uk/submarinecables/
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