Major construction milestone reached at new Rothienorman substation project
- New substation will play a key role in transporting renewable energy across north east Scotland
- Over 20,000 native trees planted around substation to help enhance biodiversity
The project team working on the installation of a new substation at Rothienorman in Aberdeenshire are reaching a major milestone this week with the completion of Phase One of major construction work after almost two years.
The project, led by SSEN Transmission with principal contractors Siemens BAM and overhead line contractors MSVE, will facilitate the connection of clean, renewable energy projects from across the north of Scotland and transport power to areas of demand across the country.
Work has involved creating a new 275/400 kilovolts (kV) substation around two miles west of the village of Rothienorman, along with reconductoring 23km of overhead line upgrades to the existing powerline between Rothienorman and Kintore.
With Phase One of the project now complete, the substation helps reinforce the transmission network by increasing generation capacity access in the North East and East Coast of Scotland, which plays a key role in delivering a network for net-zero emissions.
Extensive environmental mitigation work took place throughout the project, including planting over 20,000 native trees and sowing native wildflower seeds around the site to help screen the new substation and reduce the visual impact of the project. Work was taken to ensure badgers and foxes found to be living close by were not impacted by the development of the substation. Bird boxes, bat boxes and insect boxes were installed around the perimeter of the site to create a new habitat and encourage wildlife to nest in the area. Environmental specialists estimate that the site has enhanced biodiversity by 60% in the area, encouraging an increase in the amount of wildlife found within the area and supporting SSEN Transmission’s commitment to deliver biodiversity net gain on its projects.
With properties located near to the new substation, teams worked to ensure noise disturbance remained at acceptable levels, and to make sure they reduced lighting at night-time to minimise any impact during construction.
As guests in the area, the project team worked closely with the local community to keep them informed throughout the development but also to give something back and help where they could. This included providing regular monthly donations to the local food bank, and helping to spruce up Fisherford Primary School’s garden and pond allowing local species to thrive.
During the construction of this phase of the project, the team had to adapt to unprecedented challenges, including creating a robust safe-working procedure to allow construction of this significant critical infrastructure project to continue throughout the coronavirus pandemic, with teams working in isolated groups to ensure they remained safe at all times.
Commenting on the project, Craig Taylor, SSEN Transmission’s Project Manager said:
“We’re delighted to have reached this major milestone in construction of Phase One of the Rothienorman substation project, which will help facilitate the increase in renewable electricity generation in the area, as well as future-proof it to allow for any potential onshore and offshore wind farm projects to connect to the GB transmission system.
“We’ve had to work through some unique challenges during the Phase One project – including heavy snowstorms in early 2020 which affected the delivery of the supergrid transformers as well as completely changing our entire safe working procedure following the impacts of Covid-19 to allow us to continue this vital work safely. Despite all these challenges, the project was successfully delivered on time.
“The community has been really supportive of our work and we thank them again for their continued patience and understanding while we progressed with this essential project.
“Reaching an increase of 60% in terms of biodiversity as a result of this development is an outstanding achievement, and we’re delighted that we’re able to support native wildlife into the area through our extensive tree-planting and other habitat-enhancing measures, such as through installations of bird, bat and insect boxes.
“We’re now turning towards the next phase in the project which will involve work to install key 400kV components as part of the development. This second phase, once complete, will see the Rothienorman substation play a key part of the future network in the north east of Scotland, and will play a pivotal role in the journey towards net zero.”
The second phase of work at Rothienorman is set to begin in early 2022, which will involve upgrading key components on the substation to 400kV, continuing to facilitate an increase in generation demand in the north east of Scotland. The new substation is expected to be fully energised in late 2023, with final works completed in 2024.
To watch a video about the project visit SSEN Transmission at: https://www.ssen-transmission.co.uk/projects/rothienorman-substation/