Japanese group and Van Oord Offshore Wind set to install electricity cables between islands and Scottish mainland.
SSEN Transmission, a branch of the electricity infrastructure group SSE, on Tuesday named Sumitomo as the preferred bidder for the proposed Shetland 2 High Voltage Direct Current link subsea cable.
The announcement comes a day after the development banks of the UK and Scotland extended £100mn of finance to Ardersier port, which is building an energy transition hub to supply and maintain offshore wind farms from a former oil and gas services site on the Moray Firth.
Upgrading the national electricity grid is a vital component for the development of Britain’s offshore wind industry and a key driver in the pathway to net zero carbon emissions.
The UK plans to develop 50GW of offshore wind capacity by the end of the decade, up from about 14GW at present, as it pursues its 2050 net zero target. Scotland, which manages the leasing of its seabed to wind farm developers and is investing £500mn in offshore wind supply chain, is pushing for a target of 2045.
Limited grid connections remain high on the list of challenges cited by renewables developers in the UK, who also complain of supply chain bottlenecks and bureaucratic delays in regulatory approvals.
Expansion of the electricity grid is also triggering resistance from residents who, backed by parliamentarians at Holyrood, oppose large pylons snaking across the countryside.