13 January 2021: Residents, community groups, organisations and consultees are being invited to take part in an online consultation, to find out more about the onshore and offshore Seagreen 1A grid connection proposals.
The virtual consultation went live on Monday 11 January 2021 via the project website at www.seagreen1a.com with the opportunity to join live online Q&A chat sessions taking place on Monday 18 January, at 12:00 – 14.30hrs and 18.00 – 20.30hrs.
Seagreen is an offshore wind farm development owned by SSE Renewables (49%) and Total (51%). Seagreen 1A Ltd, on behalf of SSE Renewables and Total, is undertaking pre-application consultation ahead of potentially submitting applications to East Lothian Council and Marine Scotland for the onshore and offshore elements to allow the turbines to connect to the grid.
The Seagreen project, 27km off the Angus coastline and 66km off the East Lothian coastline, will be able to generate 1.5 Gigawatts(GW) from 150 wind turbines. The amount of carbon dioxide it will avoid is similar to removing almost a third of all of Scotland's annual car emissions*.
114 of the 150 consented turbines have a grid connection into Tealing, Angus, and construction on this grid connection started in 2020. As there is restricted grid capacity available at Tealing, National Grid provided a 360MW connection offer at Cockenzie in East Lothian to connect the remaining 36 turbines.
The ‘Seagreen 1A’ project comprises the infrastructure to connect the remaining 36 offshore turbines to the grid and consists of an offshore cable corridor from the wind farm to Cockenzie and proposals for landfall, the onshore cable corridor and the onshore substation.
Seagreen 1A Project Manager Stephen McKeown said:
“Seagreen is Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm and the majority of the turbines are connecting into Tealing, Angus. Seagreen 1A is our plan to connect the remaining consented 36 offshore turbines to the grid at Cockenzie, East Lothian. The project will help drive a cleaner and more resilient Scottish and UK economy, and help us reach a net-zero carbon future.
“At this point in the pre-planning stage for a project we would traditionally hold village and town hall exhibitions but, due to Covid-19 and current advice regarding holding events in person, we have moved all our exhibition material online. We are also hosting live chat online events, where members of our project team will be available to answer questions on the plans.
“We have already engaged with some local community groups and we look forward to meeting local residents and other community groups, either online or in the future in person, to introduce ourselves and our plans in due course.”
*Quoted removal of cars based on projected annual carbon abated and calculated against recorded average of 5.89m/tCO2 by cars on roads in Scotland in 2017 (Carbon Account for Transport 2019, Transport Scotland).