I read with interest Christine Metcalfe’s comments on the proposal for a
North Sea electricity grid (Supergrid a pipe dream, Letters, July 26). Her
critique rested primarily upon a single point, that “electricity is most
economically generated as close as possible to where the demand is”. She
advances an argument proffered by successive UK Governments since the 50s:
if you are to build a power plant, build it near consumers. This makes
sense if you are constructing a major power plant, where you import raw
materials to generate electricity. However, it makes little sense if you
are seeking to capture a natural resource, whether it be wind, wave or
tide. That is why the UK transmission charges must distinguish between
‘major’ point source power generation and small-scale renewable power
generation.
In the next decade ahead, Scotland will experience electricity shortages.
Climate change legislation, certain to be tightened after the December UN
gathering in Paris, will see the end of Longannet and like coal-fired power
plants (unless the Scottish Government is willing to commit to carbon
capture technology). The Scottish Government, for political reasons, has
also decided that Scotland’s two remaining, zero carbon-emitting, nuclear
power plants will close. As a result, Scotland will become a net
electricity importer. Renewables are part of the solution, but they are
bedevilled by issues of intermittency, and the reality that not everyone
wants a windmill in their garden. Setting windmills offshore will address
some – but by no means all – of these problems.
However, sharing electricity across European grids mitigates against
renewable intermittency (as indeed do pump action hydro plants which can
store the ‘excess’ electricity). In Metcalfe’s world Scotland would become
an energy island, isolated from all, neither benefitting from the export of
its electricity nor from its import. In such a world, the hills will indeed
be alive with the whirr of turbines, for we shall need many, many more. And
there will be pylons aplenty.
A North Sea grid has costs, but it offers extraordinary opportunities for
Scotland. Sharing electricity across the North Sea addresses renewable
intermittency, reduces excess electricity generation, helps address climate
change, provides employment in ports across Scotland and in the medium term
will moderate the ever increasing cost of electricity. Surely worth exploring?
Ian Duncan
MEP, Edinburgh
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