Residents in Stromness had an opportunity on Tuesday 18 March to see what was happening with the installation of the underground cable by SSEN Transmission.
The 14 Km underground cable with be laid from the Finstown Substation to Warbeth. A subsea cable will then link Orkney with the Scottish Mainland.
The event in Stromness at the Town Hall consisted of a large ring of information boards. SSEN representatives mingled with the public answering questions and explaining what was happening so far with the construction works.
Along the route from Finstown ‘link pillars’ will be installed. These will enable access to locate faults should they happen. The ‘link pillars’ will be placed at field boundaries and fenced with a gate.
People will have noticed the works progressing at Stenness near the Brig o’ Waithe where the cable has to cross to get to the Stromness side. Asked about utilising the route where the underground cable is to go being re-purposed as a cycle/walk way, a representative said that was still under discussion. The spokesperson said that the route of the underground cable wasn’t the best for a cycle/walk way as it crosses private land, and so other possibilities were being looked at.
The construction process includes access roads and the removal of stone and soils. The subsoils will be disposed of but the top soil will be returned to the location afterwards.
Wherever developments take place in Orkney there is always the possibility of archaeological remains being found. A spokesperson for SSEN said that they were careful about that and ORCA (Orkney Research for Archaeology) is informed. Items are bagged and recorded. If necessary work would be halted at that location until ORCA could investigate. Work would progress elsewhere while that went on.
The underground and subsea cables are part of Pathway to 2030.
The Orkney-Caithness 220kV HVAC Subsea Link is part of a wider connectivity project which will see the north of Scotland contribute over 50GW of clean renewable energy to the UK Grid by 2050.
Warbeth is a popular route for walkers and the SSEN team were keen to engage with the public because of the disruption that the construction work will involve in the next few weeks.
Major wind farm developments are planned for Orkney. These are part of the conditions to install the subsea cable exporting electricity generated in the islands to the UK Grid.
Fiona Grahame
Leave a Reply