We need clarity on question of who pays for power lines upgrade – Herald (letters)

MOST domestic customers will be happy with the sentiments in Jenny Hogan’s
letter regarding the upgrading of power lines (Letters, May 5), but they
will not be sure who pays.

There is SSE Power Distri­bution and SSE Transmission Ltd in the north and
Ms Hogan also mentions National Grid.

It can be argued that payment for capital investment should fall on the
eventual consumers of the power being transported. A more refined model
would recognise that spreading payments across the whole “universe” of
customers will ease ability to pay for those in the more distant and
sparsely populated areas where cost per consumer is much higher. Thus with
the Royal Mail we still have the universal service obligation where letters
to and from Orkney are charged at the same rate as letters to and from
Orpington.

This is not the case any more with electricity. The northern and western
half of Scotland pays higher distribution charges than in the rest of the
UK to receive the electric power which is so vital to life. Most domestic
customers will expect (but not know if it is so), that Scottish Hydro area
consumers will be paying for the costs of repairing the Kintyre and Arran
networks so badly damaged a year ago. They may also now expect Southern
Electric area consumers to pay for repairs to the devastation in the south
of England over this past winter.

Transparency in the electricity industry is improving, but more could be
done to inform domestic customers about who is paying for the upgraded
Beauly to Denny power line which travels through the Highlands but takes
the power to consumers outwith the area. A new £1.3bn transmission link is
being planned between Caithness and Moray and, most prominently, the
continuing wrangle over the proposed “interconnector” to take renewables
power south from the islands is a classic case of who pays?

There is an obvious need here for clear information to be given to the
public. In former years we used to have a North of Scotland Electricity
Consultative Council. Today, maybe SSE could issue a newsletter to all its
Scottish customers with its annual report on 21 May. The Yes and No
campaigns in the independence debate should certainly clarify their positions.

RJ Ardern,
26A Southside Road,
Inverness.