Argyll’s renewable energy potential will literally go nowhere without inclusion in planned National Grid upgrade

Dick Walsh, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council, has written to First Minister Alex Salmond as a matter of urgency. Argyll has been excluded from the planned upgrade to the National Grid.

The National Planning Framework for Scotland (NPF2) is currently before the Scottish Parliament and is due to be debated on 5th March 2009. It sets out details of future plans for electricity grid reinforcements, including sub-sea cables. Councillor Walsh points out that, in spite of previous representations from Argyll and Bute Council, the crucial Hunterston to Carradale cable has not been included in the plan.

In contrast, the cables for Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles are planned.

Councillor Walsh is saying: ‘The inclusion of this sub-sea cable in the National Planning Framework is critical to Argyll and Bute’s future as a centre for renewable energy production.

‘The electricity grid within Argyll and Bute is currently “saturated” – with the result that any new energy projects, even very small ones, are being refused connections any earlier than 2018. We need to increase capacity so that we can play to our strengths and introduce new wind, marine and tidal developments.

‘I cannot over-emphasise the importance of the Hunterston to Carradale sub-sea cable if we are to ensure that our extensive renewable resources can be harnessed for the long term benefit of our economy, our communities and our businesses’.

The situation highlighted by Councillor Walsh is a very serious one for Argyll. This is a place that urgently needs to establish a long-term earning capacity to sustain its economy. It is the second largest local authority area in Scotland and has a small populatiuon which is the third most dispersed in Scotland.

This means that the infrastructural and service costs Argyll annually faces are significantly higher than is the case in most other Scottish local authorities while it lacks the population base to pay for them in taxes.

In every sense, renewable energy generation is a major and enduring answer to Argyll’s economic needs. it has first class and accessible resources over the spectrum of tide, wave, wind and biomass.

It may have the means to generate this type of power and to keep generating it, but without a grid capable of carrying the power away from its sources, no serious production project can be launched here. Argyll is shackled from the start.

Argyll is Scotland’s Cinderella – beautiful but poor and orphaned. It’s close to the Central Belt but not of the Central Belt in culture or in nature. It’s technically part of the Highlands and Islands but, as that region’s most southerly territory, is not owned by the Highlands at the necessary visceral level. Argyll is not one of ‘the home counties’ for, say, Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

The Highlands and Islands see Argyll as close to the Central Belt and therefore brushed with relative gold dust and not in need. This is very far from the case.

Argyll is hugely rich in natural resources and in the beauty of its landscape. It is economically poor and lacks the employment possibilities to attract economically active incomers and to offer opportunities with real career development to its young people. It’s two real strengths for economic development are renewable energy and activity tourism.

Argyll and Bute Council has made serious strides forward in its governance of the area but however strongly it walks and however focused it is on its targets,  it needs arrows in its quiver.

Argyll’s constituency MSP is the Enterprise, Energy and Tourism Minister, Jim Mather. He is very well placed to understand the economic development needs of Argyll and to know its place in the Government’s priorities in renewable energy development. For Argyll is drawing this matter to his attention and asking him to send us his perspectives on the situation for publication.

The photograph of Argyll and Biute Council Leader, Dick Walsh, has been cropped from a group shot issued to For Argyll by the Council’s Communication Team, taken at the recent launch in Argyll of the Registrar General’s Book of Scottish Connections.