Upgrades to lead the charge on cleaner and cheaper energy in Scotland

The Herald Scotland

30-04-2025

E lectricity powers nearly every aspect of modern life, with a recent National Grid poll revealing the average UK home uses no fewer than 13 electrical devices. This, with the inexorably rising uptake in electric cars and heat pumps, means national demand is expected to double by 2050.
To meet growing consumer requirements and enable a clean power future, the renewable energy industry is mapping out where new generation sources are developed, alongside identifying growing demand areas, such as data centres and industrial zones. However, ultimately none of this can work without a strong transmission infrastructure.
That's why the mantra 'there's no transition without transmission' is now driving the largest electricity grid investment since its original construction in the early Twentieth Century.
'If you think about the rationale behind why the electricity transmission network was built – and the demand – it's certainly a very different picture now. The generation picture is also very different. Back in the day it was dominated by coal, nuclear and gas-fired stations,' says Nicola Connelly.
As CEO of SP Energy Networks Nicola Connelly leads all transmission activity for central and southern Scotland and, as the second largest distribution operator in Great Britain, is responsible for ensuring 12 million homes and businesses benefit from a safe, secure and resilient network.
She notes: 'Now we have offshore and onshore windfarms and we have growth in solar production and battery storage, we have a lot more distributed generation coming from different places and really big demand centres in different pockets of the country.
'If you think about wind, in particular, a lot of the generation is in Scotland, however you have a huge amount of demand in the south of England.
'So we need to build super highways to get the electricity to where
it's needed.
'That's really what is driving the huge investment in the grid. And this is all part of that energy transition and the drive towards clean power in 2030 and beyond.'
Collectively, the UK's three transmission owners are already preparing for an £80 billion investment as part of the upcoming price control period starting in April 2026. Each operator has submitted initial business plans to Ofgem detailing required infrastructure upgrades.
'For us the investment is around £11bn. Right across the country we're going to be either upgrading and replacing old circuits or building brand new ones to make sure we can connect the new renewable energy and we can get access to that from a demand perspective.
'However, it goes beyond that: our investment will also drive economic growth and create jobs. We will be directly employing about 1400 additional staff and supporting another 11,000 more jobs across the UK, as we head into T3.
'The other transmission owners will be in a similar position so you have that wider impact, which will also boost the wider supply chain.
"We've been speaking to a lot of our suppliers and giving them insight into what that order book looks like so they can invest in their workforce and think about what that growth actually means for them.
'So it's a massive boost from an economic perspective as well as driving that transition.'
(Image: CEO of SP Energy Networks Nicola Connelly leads transmission network activity)
Energy security is another major impetus for much needed change. The war in Ukraine exposed vulnerabilities in global energy supply chains, especially gas imports from Europe. By increasing domestic generation capacity, it's hoped the UK can reduce its dependency on foreign energy and shield consumers from
volatile global prices.
'The more we can disconnect from that and have generation within the UK and have a bit more control of it, we will drive down prices for consumers in the short to medium term,' says Connelly.
Another potential positive impact will be on constraint costs – the payments made to wind farms to curtail generation when the grid can't handle the power.
'These costs ultimately impact customers. So, if we can build out the grid and create super-highways, with vast sub-sea cables on the east and west coast of Scotland and down into England and Wales, it means you don't have that constraint and can get energy to where it's needed.
'This means the constraint cost doesn't hit customer bills and they save money.'
Community involvement also plays a vital role in the enhancement of infrastructure. With transmission projects often affecting local areas most, SP Energy Networks is proactively engaging with communities to minimise disruption and deliver lasting benefits.
'We spend a lot of time talking to local communities and educating them on why we're doing it and working with them to look at alternative solutions and do as much as we can to mitigate the impact,' says Connelly.
'The UK Government and Ofgem recently announced the UK community benefit funding. We estimate that we will have in the region of over £100m to distribute to our communities.
'That's really helpful. There's a really good example of that in our big sub-sea cable project (Eastern Green Link 1), which is a joint venture with National Grid.
'We announced an £8m fund split between north and south communities and we've been working with them about how we would spend that.
'We are supporting local communities through capacity building workshops and activities to help them strategically identify what their area needs.'
With many consumers still unaware of the rationale for a massive infrastructure effort and the link between new pylons and cheaper, greener power, public education remains a key gap.
To address this, a transmission owners media campaign through the Energy Networks Association aims to better inform the public about why improved infrastructure is necessary and how it supports the UK's broader climate and energy goals.
'Ultimately, it's about making sure we're future-proofing the grid,' notes Connelly, 'and building it out in a way that we're thinking about what that demand is going to look like in 2050 and where generation might be. So we need to also be thinking about technology and flexibility.'
This makes upskilling the workforce essential, especially to support long-term employment in emerging sectors, and so the sector is partnering with education providers and industry bodies such as EU Skills to develop training initiatives that align with evolving technology needs. This includes STEM education and technical training for next-generation grid technologies such as High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) systems.
'We've been working right across the sector and with EU skills and looking at how we can bring together the industry and our wider supply chain to develop training.
'A good example is our Dealain House training school in Cumbernauld.
'We're planning to revitalise it in order to establish a world-leading energy training and research campus, leveraging its unique co-location with the Power Networks Demonstration Centre (PNDC) and the National HVDC Centre.
'This will energise our decarbonisation economy and produce a pipeline of energy innovation and training that could be used to address global climate change challenges.
'However, it's not only about the engineering resource because a lot of the people we're looking to employ will be site managers, construction workers, project managers, lawyers, accountants – that's a whole range
of skills we're actually growing within the industry and the wider supply chain to support economic growth, which is great news for
the country.'
Connelly believes such investment not only in infrastructure but in skills will allow the UK to become a powerhouse from an industrial perspective.
'Because you're bringing those skills in, you're bringing in long-term jobs. We're very focused on 2030 because of the Government's clean power mission but a lot of our projects go way beyond that.
'The grid we are building is for the next generation and for the generation after that!'
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Partnership to deliver electricity superhighway
WORK has begun on Eastern Green Link 1 (EGL1), a major subsea electricity project designed to expand the power grid and support regional development.
A joint venture between SP Energy Networks and National Grid Electricity Transmission, it will transport enough green electricity to power around two million homes through a 190km high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable beneath the North Sea.
(Image: National Grid's Carl Trowell SP Energy Networks CEO Nicola Connelly and MSP Paul McLennan)
The £2.5 billion project will see the cable run between Torness in East Lothian and Hawthorn Pit in County Durham. At both landfall points, converter stations will be built to switch electricity between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC), enabling more efficient transmission over long distances.
EGL1 builds on the success of the Western Link, another HVDC subsea interconnector jointly delivered by SP Transmission and National Grid Electricity Transmission.
The £1.2 billion initiative spans approximately 420km, including 385km undersea, linking Hunterston on Scotland's west coast to Flintshire Bridge on the Wales-England border.
It is the world's highest-capacity single subsea electricity link and was the first bi-directional subsea interconnector, allowing electricity to flow in both directions. Planning is also underway for Eastern Green Link 4 (EGL4), a second east coast HVDC link that will provide an invaluable connection spanning 500km.