THE head of the National Grid has called for a fresh look at the laws governing charges for entry to the energy network in the new age of renewables.

Steve Holliday yesterday met First Minister Alex Salmond, who has been a vocal critic of the existing charging regime which makes it more expensive to put power into the grid in the very northern climes where renewables such as a wave and offshore wind will be generated.

Mr Holliday also came to Scotland with a firm commitment to two major undersea power cables off the west and east coasts as a way of linking future renewables to a European sub-sea grid.

Mr Holliday, chief executive of National Grid, argued that current charges were wrong, but were not the primary issue. He highlighted that Scotland already had more than half of the UK's approved alternative energy sites but fewer than a fifth of these had been given planning permission. He also pointed to the way current rules force a queueing system for some projects which did not permit a judgment on viability.

Mr Holliday is pushing the idea of two undersea cables, one from Peterhead to Tyneside and the other from Scotland's West Coast to Wales, which fit into the idea of interconnectors with Ireland and with Europe.

This must be decided soon, he says, before another wave of offshore applications are approved on the basis of localised connections rather than this bigger picture.

He emphasised that the current charging regime was based on Westminster statute. After his meeting with Mr Holliday yesterday the First Minister said: "Today the National Grid told us that they accepted the whole system was due for fundamental review.

"There is no justification for charging a power station in Longannet £33m when it would pay - not charge - an equivalent power station in London £13m. Similarly, Peterhead would be charged £30m while a power station in Seabank, in the South West of England, would be paid £3.05m.

"Yesterday I met with council leaders from the Highlands and Islands - the areas most discriminated against under this intolerable regime. They told me that charges of up to £80 per kilowatt have been quoted to developers in Orkney.

"Such extremes of charging can have no justification and similar examples were put to me from Shetlands and the Western Isles."

Mr Salmond added: "Scotland is the most energy rich nation in Europe, with an unrivalled array of potentially cheap, renewable and low-carbon energy sources.

"We have the ability and skills to develop clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies. UK and Europe need Scotland to help meet renewable and carbon reduction targets. Yet the existing transmission charging regime is nonsensical and counter-productive, working against the development of these resources."