Item5Appendix3BGeneralComment20220069DETBatteryStorage

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 3B 23/09/2022

AGENDA ITEM 5

APPENDIX 3B

2022/0069/DET

REP­RES­ENT­A­TIONS GENERAL

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Net­works TRANSMISSION

Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion Plc FAO Emma Wilson Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey Scot­land PH26 3HG

planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Inver­al­mond House 200 Dunkeld Road Perth PH1 3AQ Leah. Watton@​sse.​com 01738 344943 22^nd March 2022

Dear Ms Wilson,

Rep­res­ent­a­tion by SSEN Trans­mis­sion in rela­tion to plan­ning applic­a­tion ref. 2022/0069/DET | Con­struc­tion of bat­tery energy stor­age facil­ity (49.9 MW), con­trol build­ing, switch room, bat­tery stor­age con­tain­ers, invert­er con­tain­ers, land­scap­ing and asso­ci­ated works | Land 380M West Of East Croft­more Boat Of Garten

Scot­tish and South­ern Elec­tri­city Net­works (SSEN Trans­mis­sion), oper­at­ing under licence held by Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion plc, owns, oper­ates, and devel­ops the high voltage elec­tri­city trans­mis­sion sys­tem in the north of Scot­land. This includes elec­tri­city trans­mis­sion lines and asso­ci­ated sub­sta­tions which is a crit­ic­al nation­al infra­struc­ture, clas­si­fied as Nation­al Devel­op­ment under the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work. It is a vital require­ment to sup­port the deliv­ery of an enhanced high voltage elec­tri­city trans­mis­sion grid and con­trib­utes to meet­ing nation­al tar­gets towards elec­tri­city gen­er­a­tion, net zero, and secur­ity of energy supplies.

In respect of the above noted plan­ning applic­a­tion, SSEN Trans­mis­sion wishes to lodge a rep­res­ent­a­tion. We note that both the High­land Coun­cil and Cairngorm Nation­al Park are involved in the plan­ning pro­cess so rep­res­ent­a­tions will be sub­mit­ted to both authorities.

The pro­posed applic­a­tion site lies dir­ectly to the north­w­est of the Boat of Garten Sub­sta­tion and there is vari­ous trans­mis­sion infra­struc­ture with­in the loc­ale includ­ing under­ground cabling. There­fore, there are con­cerns that the pro­posed lay­out may impact upon SSEN Transmission’s exist­ing under­ground cabling spe­cific­ally in the areas with the pro­posed access track on the east­ern side of the sub­sta­tion and the pro­posed land­scap­ing in the north­w­est edge of the applic­a­tion site. It is noted that the pro­posed access track on the east­ern side of the sub­sta­tion is sited over under­ground cabling and as such we would seek to agree any pro­posed meth­od of cross­ing with heavy con­struc­tion machinery. Moreover, the pro­posed land­scap­ing to the north and west of our sub­sta­tion pro­poses veget­a­tion over exist­ing under­ground cabling which may cre­ate oper­a­tion­al issues, and as such we would seek agree­ment pri­or to con­struc­tion as dis­cussed below.

1^st Floor, Inver­al­mond House, 200 Dunkeld Road, Perth PH1 3AQ ssen​.co​.uk Scot­tish and South­ern Elec­tri­city Net­works is a trad­ing name of: Scot­tish and South­ern Energy Power Dis­tri­bu­tion Lim­ited Registered in Scot­land No. SC213459; Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion plc Registered in Scot­land No. SC213461; Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Power Dis­tri­bu­tion plc Registered in Scot­land No. SC213460; (all hav­ing their Registered Offices at Inver­al­mond House 200 Dunkeld Road Perth PH1 3AQ); and South­ern Elec­tric Power Dis­tri­bu­tion plc Registered in Eng­land & Wales No. 04094290 hav­ing its Registered Office at 55 Vastern Road Read­ing Berkshire RG1 8BU which are mem­bers of the SSE Group www​.ssen​.co​.uk Doc­u­ment Revised 5.9.16

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Scot­tish & South­ern Elec­tri­city Networks

As such SSEN Trans­mis­sion request that that if the applic­a­tion is to be gran­ted, then a pre- com­mence­ment plan­ning con­di­tion be attached to the con­sent that requires the developer to con­sult with SSEN Trans­mis­sion and to seek our approv­al for meth­od state­ments for any pro­posed con­struc­tion works, access, land­scap­ing and tree plant­ing due to the pres­ence of our under­ground cables.

It is also worth not­ing that SSEN Trans­mis­sion are required through the Cairngorm VISTA¹ (Visu­al Impact of Scot­tish Trans­mis­sion Assets) Pro­ject and the ori­gin­al con­sent to provide suf­fi­cient tree screen­ing on the bound­ary of the Boat of Garten Sub­sta­tion to reduce the visu­al impacts in the loc­al envir­on­ment. As such we would seek to pro­tect against the remov­al or dam­age of these trees which are cru­cial for screen­ing the exist­ing substation.

SSEN Trans­mis­sion asks that the above con­cerns are con­sidered and addressed before determ­in­ing this applic­a­tion and that if it is gran­ted, a pre-com­mence­ment plan­ning con­di­tion is put in place that requires the applic­ant to agree with SSEN Trans­mis­sion the con­struc­tion works details, a detailed trans­port man­age­ment plan in rela­tion to the access road and any landscaping/​tree strategies.

SSEN Trans­mis­sion also wish to high­light that it is the Applicant’s respons­ib­il­ity to safely con­struct and oper­ate their Pro­posed Devel­op­ment in a man­ner that does not have any health and safety or oper­a­tion­al impacts upon our trans­mis­sion infra­struc­ture includ­ing the Boat of Garten Sub­sta­tion and asso­ci­ated infra­struc­ture which lies dir­ectly adja­cent to the applic­a­tion site. As noted above, SSEN Transmission’s assets are crit­ic­al nation­al infra­struc­ture which are recog­nised as nation­al devel­op­ments under the Nation­al Plan­ning Framework.

If you require any fur­ther inform­a­tion or plans to help cla­ri­fy our pos­i­tion, please feel free to con­tact me.

Yours sin­cerely,

Match

Leah Wat­ton MRTPI Town Plan­ner SSEN Trans­mis­sion — Land Team

¹ VISTA is a £31.9M pro­ject fun­ded as part of a £500M scheme admin­istered by the energy reg­u­lat­or, Ofgem which allows the three GB elec­tri­city trans­mis­sion own­ers to apply for fund­ing to mit­ig­ate the impact of his­tor­ic elec­tri­city infra­struc­ture in Nation­al Parks and Nation­al Scen­ic Areas. link

Inver­al­mond House, 200 Dunkeld Road, Perth PH1 3AQ ssen​.co​.uk Scot­tish and South­ern Elec­tri­city Net­works is a trad­ing name of: Scot­tish and South­ern Energy Power Dis­tri­bu­tion Lim­ited Registered in Scot­land No. SC213459; Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Trans­mis­sion plc Registered in Scot­land No. SC213461; Scot­tish Hydro Elec­tric Power Dis­tri­bu­tion plc Registered in Scot­land No. SC213460; (all hav­ing their Registered Offices at Inver­al­mond House 200 Dunkeld Road Perth PH1 3AQ); and South­ern Elec­tric Power Dis­tri­bu­tion plc Registered in Eng­land & Wales No. 04094290 hav­ing its Registered Office at 55 Vastern Road Read­ing Berkshire RG1 8BU which are mem­bers of the SSE Group www​.ssen​.co​.uk