GREEN electricity from Scotland could be run down the east coast of Britain through an undersea cable costing billions of pounds, the Crown Estate said yesterday.
The agency has commissioned an initial study to investigate the possibility of an off-shore transmission system which could distribute renewable energy generated in Scotland around the UK. The results, due in early spring, will assess the practicality of the marine route for power from wind farms, wave and tidal devices generated in the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
Ian Pritchard, Head of the Marine Estate (Scotland), said that the undersea cable would be intended to meet growing demand for sustainable sources of clean fuel in future years and as an alternative to help overcome difficulties in providing land-based transmission lines. However, it would not be an alternative to the surface cable, strung on pylons, which Scottish and Southern Energy wants to build between Beauly and Denny to transmit renewable power to an interconnector. It has run into vociferous opposition, particularly in rural Perthshire.
The system would consist of a number of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cables and sub-stations connecting sources of generation with demand up and down the east coast of the UK.
"Supplying clean and sustainable green energy is a topic on everyone's agenda at the moment. Renewable power devices located in remote areas of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland are already operational.
"New technology will increase overall electricity generating capacity but transmission to the national grid is the key to long-term viability," said Mr Pritchard.
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