CALL FOR AN END TO ‘MASSIVE VESTED INTERESTS’ OF SCOTLAND’S ENERGY BIG TWO

A former UK Energy Minister has called for the two Scottish energy giants, Scottish Power and SSE, to be stripped of their role in deciding where grid investments take place in order to address the “scandal” of “massive vested interests”.

The call by Brian Wilson follows a decision by the French company, GDF Suez, to pull out of a proposed windfarm in Lewis because of continuing delays in providing a sub-sea cable to the mainland. Shetland and Orkney are subject to similar uncertainties.

Writing in the West Highland Free Press, the former Labour Minister describes the seven year delay in reaching a decision on the Western Isles link as “an absolute scandal” and the role of SSE, which owns the infrastructure company Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission Ltd, as a “scandal-within-the scandal”.

Mr Wilson states: “The question of whether or not a sub-sea cable is laid between the Western Isles and the mainland in order to facilitate the development of onshore and offshore renewable energy is a fairly major issue of public policy. SSE/SHETL is, on the other hand, a ruthless and self-interested commercial concern.

“The logic of these two statements is that SSE/SHETL should have absolutely no hand, actual or potential, in the decision-making process. Yet they most certainly do”.  In their other role as developers, Mr Wilson argues, SSE “have massive vested interests in where insfrastructure investment takes place and, by extension, where it does not have priority”.

There has already been a seven year delay in a decision being reached on whether or not a cable should link  Lewis with the mainland, thereby allowing renewable energy investments to proceed. As well as two wind-farm projects which have been giving planning consent, Lewis is seen as vital to hopes for development of a wave-power industry in the UK.

The electricity regulator, Ofgem, says it is still waiting for SSE/SHETL to present a “needs case” on which a decision about the Western Isles link can be made. Developers are also waiting for decisions on the level of subsidy that would be paid for island generation and the cost of using the cable.

Mr Wilson says that the role of SSE and Scottish Power as infrastructure providers is “a matter of  historical accident which is long, long overdue for addressing”. He explains: “When the electricity industry was privatised, the two Scottish companies were left as vertically integrated conglomerates as a sop to Scottish public opinion, rather than broken up as happened in England.

“To be fair to the Tories, nobody at that time was envisaging the renewables boom and or the associated influence that this would gift to Scottish Power and SSE”.  He says that a Parliamentary Committee “must examine this fundamental issue of the Scottish companies’ role in the decision-making process about infrastructure investments.

He adds: “They should, I believe, be stripped of that role which should be transferred as quickly as possible to an independent public body”.

On the specific issue of the island cables, Mr Wilson writes: “I can think of no subject better suited to a short, sharp investigation by a Parliamentary committee, with the power to take evidence. And I don’t really care which Parliament it is – both Westminster and Holyrood have a stake in this”.

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