SSEN: 50GW offshore wind target difficult without ASTI

The government pledge to develop 50GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 would be very difficult under the Large Onshore Transmission Investment regime, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks has said.

The network operator said it strongly supported the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework as an alternative because it enables a tranche of transmission projects to be fast-tracked.

SSEN Transmission’s director of customers and stakeholders Christianna Logan said “the timeline didn’t stack up” if the previous mechanism (LOTI) had been used to approve schemes.

She told Utility Week: “There is a multi-stage approval process [for LOTI] with the regulator that is very transactional. We would get approval to submit a needs case, submit a needs case, and then get approval for the needs case.

“That meant multiple consultations with Ofgem, which can take many years. At SSEN, we said that with the timeline to develop and construct offshore wind projects, if we added all that time for approval, it would be hard to hit 2030.”

The LOTI mechanism was introduced by Ofgem to allow transmission operators to bring forward large investment projects where funding had not been awarded as part of the price control. ASTI exempts overall responsibility for projects from competition, with incumbent transmission owners responsible for their delivery.

SSEN said it had worked with the regulator and system operator to identify projects that should be sped up under the new regime. “Rather than go through approvals individually, project by project, and justify the need, we identified a tranche of projects needed for 2030 and that really helped us accelerate the process with Ofgem,” Logan explained.

She described the previous approach as “piecemeal”. There was now an “ongoing conversation” with Ofgem, the government and the system operator as to whether to continue with an ASTI-style rolling investment framework, she added.

The ASTI framework currently comprises 26 projects, including an HVDC link between Peterhead in Scotland and Drax, and a range of other high voltage, double circuit, and transmission reinforcement plans. The aim is to enable the transmission of much greater amounts of renewable energy around the UK.

It’s not just speed that is a benefit of ASTI, Logan said. “For the supply chain, it’s critical. It provides capacity to invest in, rather than just one project at a time, which leaves suppliers uncertain about what is needed in total.”

She also said ASTI was making community engagement in Scotland more straightforward. “If we consult on a project and six months down the line come back with another, it can feel as if we are not being transparent. ASTI enables high-quality engagement about the overall plan, so we get communities’ views on the infrastructure as a whole.”