WORLD EXCLUSIVE report by Scottish-UK-Energy-News
The Orkney isles are generating so much electricity from renewable sources that they cannot export it all to mainland because of a lack of HVDC connections that it is ‘forced’ to look at ways to use up the excess (see chart)
Yet – as Neil Kermode, managing director of the Orkney-based European Marine Energy Centre who ‘double-jobbed’ to deliver the presentation from the Orkney Renewables Energy Forum (OREF) – the islands first highlighted the need for a UK mainland connector 10 years ago in 2006.
And they’re still waiting.
Kermode explained: “In Orkney, we have more than 660 turbines installed – which is the most turbines of any county in UK
“Interestingly, Orkney has 1/8th of UK’s domestic turbines (0.07% of UK’s solar)
“The cost to Orkney consumers is £9 each – about £90k/yr while this brings income to the Orkney economy of more than £4 million a year. So we need
- Offshore connection hubs for marine projects
- New subsea connections from marine projects
- New overland connections from wind projects
- New and expanded substations
- Buffer storage capacity
- New 132 kV overland connections
- New converter stations locations
- New cable landfalls, and
- New HVDC subsea connections and
- Subsea protection of cables
In conclusion, Kermode told MPs: “ To paraphrase Churchill, give us the tools and we will finish the job.”
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