Electricity highway represents another lost future for Scotland

The biggest engineering project in Britain will start at Peterhead later this year – the northern end of an interconnector that will take renewable energy from Scotland to power homes in the south of England.

This is a blatant theft. Or to be more polite, a repeat of Scotland’s never-ending experience as an extractive economy – a place from which valuable raw materials are taken so that value is added and better-paid jobs created … elsewhere.

We are meant to be overawed by the huge numbers involved – the electrical superhighway between Scotland and England approved this week by Ofgem will be the longest high voltage cable in the UK, powering two million homes. It’ll cost £3.4 billion – the largest-ever investment in electricity transmission infrastructure – though closer to £4.3bn with inflation.

READ MORE: Scottish Government to end universal Winter Fuel Payments

Still, whatever. It’s too exciting to worry about overspends.

The Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) will run from Aberdeenshire to Yorkshire and transport Scottish-generated renewable electricity to England. We’re told the direction of travel will reverse when it’s not windy here and the valiant Drax power station in Yorkshire will come to the rescue.

Let’s not fall for that. This energy cable will be a one-way street.

And even if Drax does occasionally swing in, that just validates the UK’s biggest source of emissions which nonetheless claims to be net zero.

Drax burns imported wood pellets (70% from the south-eastern US) but is viewed as carbon neutral because the company promises to plant replacement trees – even though saplings take 40-100 years to reach maturity, if they’re ever planted, and the carbon emitted is chalked up the pellets’ place of origin (conveniently abroad). But amazingly, Drax receives a £1.5 million government subsidy every single day. Take that in.

Its greenwashing claims are currently being investigated by a wing of the UK Department of Trade. But Drax will now get a new leash of life as an anchor location of the “Anglo-Scottish” electrical super highway. It’s outrageous, but who cares?

There’s more. 1000 km of cable will be supplied by the Prysmian Group headquartered in Milan. There’s no doubting Prysmian's expertise, but cabling was once a Scottish speciality.

Finally, most of the super highway will be subsea or undergrounded, “avoiding the need for large, visually intrusive pylons,” according to SSEN. Now ain’t that sweet?

Dozens of Scottish communities have been told it’s FAR too expensive to underground or undersea an inch of SSEN’s other interconnector linking Angus with Caithness. So, the EGL2 will be in the sea or underground but the northern route will be overland, piling through scenic areas and skirting the Moray Firth.

One rule for the goose, another for the gander? I asked SSEN.

They said: “Technical challenges and geographical constraints limit the use of only offshore solutions, while the high cost of this technology is a factor that must be considered to limit the cost to energy bill payers.

“Overhead lines can carry roughly three times more power than subsea cables, supporting the Scottish Government’s target of achieving an additional 8-12GW of onshore wind by 2030, while helping meet local electricity needs and improving network reliability.”

Strange that the Big Fancy Route South doesn’t need those energy-rich overhead lines too.

But hey. What do I know?

There will be no control, precious little manufacturing but thousands of other jobs for Scots. And these de-industrialised days, that’s all anyone expects.

In its recent manifesto, the SNP called for a social tariff for energy bills, so the poor, disabled or elderly get discounted fuel bills. But that’s not bold or inspiring enough.

There’s been no alternative vision of what our renewable energy could do for an independent Scotland. Not even public embrace of the next best thing to independence – a total overhaul of the UK’s broken Thatcherite energy pricing regime as advocated by Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy.

He says the current system “is like all of Britain paying London house prices”, because the single wholesale price for electricity in Britain prompts interconnectors to send power to Europe when it’s needed in the south-east of England and Scottish wind farms are paid to switch off while the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) pays gas-fired plants to switch on in the south of England. It’s a total scandal.

Jackson says: “We literally pay top dollar to import Norwegian electricity into Scotland whilst paying Scottish wind farms to turn off.”

That indefensible practice will cost an estimated £2-4bn per year by the 2030s. And that’s why the National Grid ESO is backing change – switching from one “unified” price to individual prices in seven to 12 “zones” across the country.

Switching to such a location-based charging system would cut up to £51bn of waste and cut bills by an average of £600 per household according to an Ofgem-commissioned study.

According to the industry editor of the hardly radical Daily Telegraph: “It would also incentivise power companies to build generation capacity closer to where it’s needed, requiring fewer pylons to be built.

“Scotland would be transformed overnight into the cheapest place in Europe to buy electricity, potentially turbocharging investment in industries such as green hydrogen production.”

READ MORE: Kate Forbes savages Scottish Labour MPs over Winter Fuel Payment cut

In short, location pricing would get the south of England to finally roll their own and emerge swiftly from a decade of the Tories’ onshore wind farm ban to get cracking, saving money and the environment while Scotland’s economy is transformed.

The Ofgem study’s author says locational pricing in Texas has spurred power-hungry data centres to set up in cheap areas, while new wind farms are being built in more expensive ones. But the switch to locational pricing needs to happen now – looking at you, Ed Miliband – or future pay-offs will be wiped out by the massive cost of transmission upgrades. Like “Scotland’s” new electrical super highway.

Does this matter? London-based commentators point out that Scotland already produces five times more wind energy than it uses. But that creates the impression our renewable energy is like water running out the tap. Someone else might as well get the benefit once Scotland’s needs are sated. But wait a minute.

Norway has more hydropower and the same population as Scotland. They’ve used that “excess” hydro income (not oil) to heat their homes, power their industry and keep people living well without winter deaths from hypothermia – from the Arctic to Oslo.

Norway is also rated the world’s best democracy. Iceland has used its geothermal energy to heat glasshouses reducing expensive imports and offer cheap heat to citizens and businesses. Iceland has a high rate of child support and is rated the best place in the world to be a mother. These are not coincidences.

(Image: Getty Images)

Well-managed renewable energy resources create and sustain democratic powerhouses.

Meanwhile, Scotland has the highest rates of fuel poverty in Europe. That would end overnight if we could sell our wind energy not just watch it shift south.

The Scottish Government may announce an emergency freeze on spending – energy income to a Scottish Exchequer would change our balance sheet dramatically.

But above all, control over energy with independence would see Scotland become a green manufacturing pioneer – using “excess” renewables to produce green fertiliser, pioneer green transport, encourage all distilleries to become hydrogen-powered, rival Sweden as a green steel production hub and embark on the massive new business of creating green materials to replace oil-laden plastic.

That might happen eventually if Labour have the courage to opt for locational pricing – it will happen when Scotland becomes independent.

But meantime, siphoned off south, Scotland’s green energy will just let a broken system stumble on and encourage green industries to locate elsewhere.

That’s what the superhighway represents. Another lost future.

Until Scots have the confidence to take it back.