Western Isles Councillor accuses SSEN of having an ‘extremely dismissive’ attitude to the Western Isles

A councillor in the Western Isles has accused power company Scottish Southern Electricity Networks Distribution [SSEN Distribution] of being “extremely dismissive” in their “attitude to the islands”.

Speaking during last week’s meeting of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s Sustainable Development Committee, Cllr Angus McCormack hit out at the company who last month announced a decision that it would be making a like-for-like replacement of the broken 33kv transmission cable linking the Isle of Skye and the Isle of Harris.

The break in the cable in October meant that local community generation companies could not export the energy they generate from local wind farms, leaving many without their main source of income they use to support local community groups and projects, and caused wide-spread power cuts.

Inspections revealed that the sub-sea cable could not be repaired and SSEN Distribution have now committed to its replacement, which will be operational the company states, by August 2021.

But, the local generation company and other stakeholders in the islands had at the time of SSEN Distribution’s announcement called for the line to be replaced by a much higher capacity sub-sea link to enable expansion in the generation and export capacity of the community generators, but that suggestion was rejected by the company on the basis that the upgrade could not be operational until February 2023.

During the committee meeting, Cllr McCormack, who is also a Director of Point and Sandwick Power Ltd, also alleged that SSEN had in a press release announcing the like-for-like replacement of the 33kv cable stated that it had “spoken to everybody” when, he alleges, discussions with local stakeholders were still on-going, a move which the councillor alleged was “basically a lie”.

Cllr McCormack also alleged that SSEN claimed during a meeting that they had no experience of laying “a 100mw cable” only for it to be subsequently revealed, Cllr McCormack alleged, that the company had laid such a cable in a connection to the Isle of Wight.

The councillor concluded: “that was another lie from SSEN”, and said that the company “could at least be honest.”

Cllr McCormack said to the committee: “I’d just like to comment on SSEN’s attitude to our islands, I find their attitude very dismissive – I don’t know how the [Comhairle’s] Director [of Communities] has got on in conversations with them but they seem extraordinarily negative in their attitude to us.

“They’ve just built the second cable to Orkney, without any fuss that I am aware of, and they are about to build one of the longest sub-sea cables in this country from Shetland to the mainland.

“Why is it that they are so ready to do these jobs and not respond to us? I think our aspirations are perfectly reasonable.”

Cllr McCormack concluded: “I understand from the Director [of Communities] about rules and regulations etc, but it seems as if that they [SSEN] are able to overcome these issues for the Northern Isles but not for the Western Isles and I think we should be pressing quite hard at a political level perhaps to try and see if they would take a more harmonious approach to developments in the Outer Hebrides. We don’t want to be left out and the other islands get way ahead of us.”

In response to Cllr McCormack’s allegations, a spokesperson for SSEN Distribution said: “Following identification of the fault on the Skye-Harris cable in October, we undertook a thorough options assessment of potential replacement solutions, including exploring a 33kV, dual 33kV and, working with SSEN Transmission, a 132kV option.

“We recognise from our engagement with local stakeholders there are a wide range of views about the optimal solution, each with its own trade-offs.  In assessing these various options, it soon became clear that the conditions and timescales related to a larger solution posed a number of challenges which could not be reconciled without leaving both customers and network users exposed to an extended and significant risk.   We therefore took the decision to progress a like-for-like replacement which will be energised in August this year, and will subsequently return the network to normal operation.”

SSEN Distribution’s spokesperson concluded: “We remain committed to working constructively with all stakeholders as we continue to explore economic and efficient options to further strengthen the electricity network on the Western Isles in addition to providing additional capacity to support greater export of the island’s renewable electricity.

"This will include further options analysis in our draft RIIO-ED2 business plan, which will be submitted in July this year.”