Energy / ‘Come and talk to us’ SSEN manager urges local people as company embarks on major infrastructure project
- New ‘Shetland hub’ will have significant footprint
- Construction likely to commence in 2028/29
- SSEN acknowledges consultation fatigue
LOCALS will have a “genuine” say in what a multi-billion pound project to build a second subsea cable to the Scottish mainland and a massive converter station in Shetland’s North Mainland could look like.
That was the promise and assurance given by Alan Kelly, SSEN Transmission’s lead project manager, during an information event in the Brae Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
Kelly urged residents to either attend the company’s public events or respond online via SSEN’s website. “Please come and talk to us,” he said.
However, communities have no say in whether the Shetland 2 HVDC Link project will go ahead as this was decided by NESO – the National Energy System Operator – more than a year ago as part of its Beyond 2030 report.
Speaking to Shetland News, Kelly acknowledged that communities in Shetland, and elsewhere across Scotland, could feel overwhelmed by the sheer size and numbers of projects coming through as part of the green energy transition.
And he also acknowledged a growing scepticism towards the industry as a result of wind farms like Viking Energy standing idle and cashing in on constraint payments due to bottlenecks in the north of Scotland transmission network.
“We try and come up with a strategy that works for Shetland, that interfaces well with our strategy for the north of Scotland to try and get the power flowing properly and to give the grid operator the flexibility [it needs] to serve the demand with green energy,” Kelly said.
“I appreciate that we are seen as a big corporation, and we need to build relationships and learn from mistakes we made in the past and try to do things better.
Image: SSEN Transmission
“If we lose the community, it is going to be a really hard 10 years; it will be easier for everybody to find a way to try to do this harmoniously.”
The project manager confirmed that what is planned for Shetland will have “a significant footprint”.
A location for a converter station larger than the one at Kergord is likely to be built somewhere in the Sullom Voe/Scatsta area, although this has not been decided yet.
At Tuesday’s meeting the SSEN transmission team presented a number of maps with three potential cable landing sites, all in the north mainland of Shetland.
“We really try to listen to both Shetland Islands Council as well as communities who tell us: do as much as you can in the Sullom Voe/Scatsta area, it’s the industrial bit of Shetland, and we are trying to do that,” he said.
At this as yet unidentified site SSEN plans to build a new HVDC converter station and a new AC 400kV substation that will be able to receive more than 3GW of power from the two large offshore wind farms planned for the east of Shetland, facilitate large planned hydrogen production and other industries such as power hungry data centres, and also feed as much as 1.8GW into the national grid.
The planned wind farms in Yell will also connect into this new ‘Shetland hub’, and not into the Kergord substation as was originally planned.
SSEN Transmission is currently in the process of obtaining licenses and permissions and hopes to be able to start construction in 2028 or 2029 with a target of 2035 for completion.
Kelly said he hoped to be back in September with a further set of public meetings “to pull everything together”.
“We will present what we call the Shetland Strategy and what it might look like,” he said. “We will also try to coordinate the other wind farm developers and get them all in one room.”
Kelly continued: “The project is happening, and SSEN has a licence obligation to deliver that project. We also have an absolute obligation to work with communities and deliver it with the least impact possible.
“We are genuinely committed to listening to communities. What we have said in previous events is that we won’t be able to give people everything you asked for.
“By holding events and trying to build relationships, we can hopefully minimise the impacts on communities and the environment, and to build these projects in an empathetic way, and we are committed to leave a lasting legacy through community benefit.”
Two other consultation events on the proposed Yell High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) connection will take place today (Wednesday) in the Burravoe Hall between 2pm and 6.45pm, and on Thursday in the Voe Hall between 2pm and 7pm.
People can comment on the Shetland 2 HVDC Link project here or contact the company’s community liaison manager Thea Groat at shetlandengagement@sse.com
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