About the project

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), operating as Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission plc (SHET) under licence has plans to construct a new 400/275kV substation adjacent to the existing transmission line at New Deer, in the North East of Scotland.

The substation will originally be constructed to operate at a voltage of 275kV, with a view to being upgraded to operate at 400kV in the future. The transmission system in both the North East and East Coast of Scotland will be upgraded to 400kV over the next decade, in order to facilitate this, SSEN are proposing both upgrading the existing Overhead Line network in the region and installing new substations at various points.

These works are required to allow increased generation capacity access to the transmission system, while keeping the network fully operable and compliant with all necessary technical standards. Without these necessary reinforcements, the network cannot facilitate all generation connections.

Establishing a substation at New Deer addresses this issue and in effect increases the networks efficiency and capability. Power sharing across these circuits becomes more important as generation load increases on the system.

Why New Deer?

There is a significant amount of renewable energy scheduled to connect to the energy transmission network in the North East of Scotland over the next ten years. One of the key generators of this is the Moray Offshore East windfarm, a 900MW offshore windfarm situated in the Moray Firth, which was given consent by the Scottish Government in 2014

It has been determined that New Deer is the optimum location for Moray Offshore East to connect to the GB Transmission Network. To facilitate this connection, there will be two substations built at New Deer. One of which will be owned by Moray Offshore East directly, the other will be owned, operate and maintained by SSEN.

For further information on the Moray Offshore East project, please view their website at the following link - http://www.morayoffshore.com/moray-east/the-project/

North East and East Coast Information Brochure

Over the coming decade SSEN plan to undertake substantial efforts to maintain, reinforce and improve our Transmission Network in the North East and East Coast of Scotland. As part of this process we have created an information brochure to help paint the bigger picture of what we are planning, why we are doing so and when we intend carry out works in the local area. Please click here to view or download our brochure from the Project Documentation tab and get in touch with any questions or queries you may have.