Scottish Affairs Committee - A Robust Grid for 21st Century ScotlandWritten evidence submitted by John Shield

I would like to add my experience of the power supply to the Portnahaven area of the Isle of Islay to the information you are assembling at your select committee.

I am John Shield, retired, one time Chartered Engineer and Member of the Materials Institute.

I have owned my property since 1998 and it has been my permanent residence for the last two years.

In my communication with Alan Reid MP in June 2011, concerning the frequent power cuts in this area, I said that, now in my 67th year, I had experienced more power cuts in my time residing here than I have in the rest of my life. This is true. I will not repeat the recent experiences or the promises and excuses made by SSE as I am sure they were ably presented by Alistair Redman, our local postmaster, when he appeared before you committee.

I would make the following observations.

There does not appear to be any rigorous inspection or maintenance programme in existence. The only inspection I have seen being carried out is on the condition of the poles in the area; a sounding of the poles to see if they are beginning to rot. Even though SSE should have a definite knowledge of the expected service life of the various components in the distribution network, such as step down transformers, it seems that their established practice is to wait until a component fails before it is replaced. This is not a good strategy as the failed component has to be found before it can be replaced and then probably has to come from the mainland. Although a planned programme of replacement would be more expensive, it would be less inconvenient for customers and possibly less expensive in the long run.

We occasionally suffer from very high winds and, being an island, the general atmosphere is more corrosive than usual especially close to the sea as is Portnahaven. I would therefore expect the choice of materials used in the general network to be of a higher grade than usual. I suspect that this is not the case. I am sure that non corrosive supports for cables and poles can be obtained and that even step down transformers are available which are designed to withstand a corrosive environment. Of course these will be more expensive, as any one who has compared the price of a standard screw to a stainless steel screw will know.

To the future. Not more than a mile from my house is the first wave power generator in the world to produce electricity for a National Grid. Although I doubt that it produces enough to supply the whole Island I think it would be able to supply the immediate area or at least part of the area. I am told however that it is not allowed to supply if the grid is down. There will be technical or safety reasons for this but I think a way could be found so that the area is automatically isolated from the grid when it fails and the wave power station continues to supply the immediate area. Is this possible?

I hope you find these observations useful.

29 January 2012