The Opportunity

The objective of this Opportunity is to shortlist the submissions that best answer the brief, with the aim of attending a presentation day with the EIC Industry Partners, where it can be discussed in greater detail with a technical panel.

The EIC welcomes submissions from individual companies or companies working in collaboration with each other.

What is the Problem?

Scottish & Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Transmission’s ‘Pathway to 2030’ is a series of major new projects to increase the capacity of the transmission network in Northern Scotland.

These projects are part of a national effort to upgrade network infrastructure across Great Britain to connect and transport renewable electricity, especially from offshore wind farms.

One of these projects is to construct a 400kV substation in Emmock, Dundee. Whilst this project is in its early stages of development, some challenges have been identified.

Following ground investigation at the site, there are no suitable rock deposits in nearby that can be excavated and crushed to form part of the makeup fill. Therefore, Emmock is in a position where large quantities of material must be imported to meet SSEN’s Specification for Earthworks (SP-NET-CIV-501 Rev 2.00), this will likely have negative implications for:

• The local community due to an increase in heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) transporting approx. 406,000 tonnes of material (equating to around 20,300 x 20t tipper lorry loads)
• The Emmock program due to expected delays in the completion of the earthworks. It’s anticipated the creation of the substation makeup will likely take 101 weeks (working a five-day week, or 86 weeks, working a six-day week; under the assumption a tipper will arrive to site every 10 minutes throughout an eight-hour working day)
• The project cost due to the delivery and cost of material.

Associated carbon spending due to emissions.

Preferred Output

SSEN Transmission is looking for a method/solution that results in:

• A reduction in the quantity of material that is required to be imported, as this will become a significant quantity across the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) substations builds programme in the future

• Any reduction in risk, schedule, carbon spending and cost across many projects
• An alternative method of transport for importing the vast amount of fill material required to meet the specifications for earthworks.