Planning consent has been granted for the Beauly Denny power line upgrade, an overhead line137miles long through iconic Scottish scenery. It replaces the existing single circuit 132kV overhead transmission line with a 400kV double circuit overhead line providing more reliable capacity.

The second circuit at 275kV, to provide the circuit onto which much of the generation in the area between Beauly and Denny could be connected. The upgraded line will be of some  600 towers of 53 metres height, compared to the current 815 towers of 33 metres.

At a time in Europe where super conducting cable  is laid underground between generating stations, Scotland's technical assessor finds "undergrounding has the potential to cause greater damage to ecology and nature conservation interests" and "underground cables are many times more expensive to install than overhead lines."

Accordingly the Beauly line is dedicated to the super pylon route, despite opposition by all the local councils affected and the Cairngorms Park Authority reported by The Guardian . 

The new line is economically vital to significantly increase the amount of electricity exported from northern Scotland, including massive windfarms planned for Shetland and Caithness, wave and tidal plants planned off Orkney of 6.4GW and a large coal-fired station to generate 1GW.

Accordingly, a network of existing power lines across Scotland and northern England will be upgraded and new undersea cables laid down the east and west coasts,  will increase the capacity of the grid in Scotland by 11.4GW.

 Energy Minister Fergus Ewing also approved a change to the route of the existing Anglo-Scottish Interconnector 400kV overhead electricity transmission line at Bearholm near Moffat which now moves 1.8km of the existing line to connect (leftg)  the Moffat substation at Bearholm to the transmission grid.

The substation will provide a connection for renewables developments in the Moffat area including the Harestanes (Forest of Ae) wind farm. 

The Crown Estate unveils plans to develop almost 5GW of offshore wind energy off the country's east coast.  

Gareth Baird, (right) Scottish Commissioner of the Crown Estate, has announced the two successful consortia to develop offshore wind zones off Scotland a target capacity of 4.8GW, subject to consent, on top of the 6.4GW of capacity we expect to realise from offshore wind projects planned in Scottish territorial waters.

EDP Renováveis and SeaEnergy (EDP-SER) will be development partners for the Moray Firth zone. SeaGreen Wind Energy Ltd - equally owned by SSE Renewables and Fluor -  secured the exclusivity zone agreement for the Firth of Forth

Talks involving Ofgem, National Grid and energy firms in Glasgow later this month are to help to resolve on-going concerns over the higher Grid connection charges levied on renewable energy producers north of the border.

The current charging regime requires electricity generators in the north of Scotland to pay charges of around £21.58KWh, while those in London receive a £2.70 KWh subsidy, and more than twice that subsidy (£6.68) is paid to firms in Cornwall, according to National Grid's own figures. Scottish generators  producing 12% of UK generation,  account for 40% of the transmission costs - or about £100m per year more than their proportionate share.