Clean Tech Scotland

Opponents of the highly controversial Beauly-Denny power line have discovered an important footnote in Holyrood’s planning blueprint clearly allowing subsea cables as opposed to the 600 gargantuan pylons which were approved last week.

There have long been calls for the scheme to use subsea cabling to minimize the visual impact in areas of outstanding natural beauty; however the Scottish Government and the public inquiry have both rejected these alternative options on cost.

Revealed in The Herald, the Scottish Government’s National Planning Framework 2 (NPF) – published in June 2009 but overshadowed by other announcements at the time – clearly shows that in the footnotes to Jim Mather’s announcement, there is confirmation that subsea cabling will be needed in addition to the pylons.

A partnership with the UK Government for pursuing a subsea option has been confirmed by the footnotes.  Jim Mather said it would mean “… developing off shore subsea cable links between the Scottish mainland and the islands and links to the UK for export”.

David Infield, head of renewable energy technologies at Strathclyde University, said: “We have always regarded Beauly-Denny as an essential reinforcement. There is enormous potential for renewables and indeed in the longer term Beauly-Denny won’t be enough.

“I have just been looking at the consented but not built wind farms in the north of Scotland, and there is something like a thousand megawatts worth. That will gobble up much of the Beauly-Denny capacity. And that is without new wave or tidal stream power generation installations.

“We need to get on and get required transmission capacity installed now or developers will be discouraged from further investment.

“Beauly-Denny, alongside new east coast and sub-sea cables, will all be needed if Scotland is to truly exploit its considerable renewable energy potential.”

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