Energy / SSE Renewables earns £5.5m in constraint payments in just three months
But none were paid during a planned shutdown earlier in October
Photo: Shetland News
ENERGY giant SSE says it did not receive any payments to keep the Viking wind farm offline during a recent planned outage.
However, the energy giant has now been paid almost £5.5m in just three months for energy that has not been used by the National Grid.
The Kergord substation was out of action early last week, with people noting that the turbines were not turning – despite high winds.
SSEN Transmission refused speculation last week that the shutdown was due to a fault at Kergord, saying it had been a “pre-planned outage”.
It said the HVDC link returned to normal late last week, with the planned inspections completed by Friday evening (18 October).
There had been concern that SSE was being paid for the outage, but it said this week that was not the case.
SSEN said constraint payments – which are paid to energy companies when they are asked to reduce their output because the energy they are producing cannot be used – do not apply to planned outages.
However, that has not stopped SSE earning another £1.5m in constraint payments for October.
The energy giant has now earned nearly £5.5 million in the last three months in constraint payments, according to data provided by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF).
The amount being paid to keep the Viking wind farm offline has caused frustration locally, particularly given they already dwarf the fee being distributed locally by SSE through the Shetland Community Benefit Fund.
The company pays out £5,000 per installed megawatt a year in community benefit to Shetland – around £2.2 million per annum.
Sustainable Shetland’s chair Frank Hay accused SSE of knowing there would be grid constraint issues during construction, and “gaming the system at consumers’ expense”.
“This highlights the very poor energy strategy in this country over many years which has resulted in this kind of situation developing,” he said.
“It will no doubt take a few years for the grid constraint issues to be resolved, by which time consumers will be very much poorer.
“Relying too much on wind power may mean that they are very much colder as well with an emerging threat of blackouts. “It is comforting to know that the good old Lerwick power station is still there to keep the lights on in Shetland, if needed.”
SSEN Transmission also this week announced plans to spend £20 billion across the north of Scotland, including tentative proposals to build homes in Shetland for its workers.
These would then be passed to the Shetland Islands Council at the conclusion of forthcoming major projects – including a second subsea cable from the isles to the mainland.
SSEN said talks had been held with the council and Hjaltland Housing about the plans, which are aimed at easing the housing crisis in Shetland.
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