Sumitomo and Van Oord Secured for Shetland 2 HVDC Project
SSEN Transmission has today entered into a Capacity Reservation Agreement (CRA) with Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. together with consortium partner Van Oord, for the supply and installation of a second 525kV HVDC cable link between Shetland and the Scottish mainland, known as the Shetland 2 HVDC Link.
The signing of the CRA marks a significant new chapter in, not only Scotland, but the UK too, with planned cable manufacture for the project to be delivered from Sumitomo’s new state of the art manufacturing facility, which is currently under construction in Nigg, in the northeast of Scotland. Cables of this type and technology have never previously been manufactured in the UK and this announcement provides another step towards realising the huge opportunity that the connection and transportation of clean power will bring for the local area and the country as a whole.
It follows the announcement in May 2024 that SSEN Transmission had selected Sumitomo and Van Oord as the preferred bidder for the Shetland 2 project, which was a crucial milestone underpinning Sumitomo’s investment in its new cable manufacturing facility.
The Scottish factory is set to become Sumitomo’s flagship for offshore cabling in the UK and Europe, with construction of the £350million facility now well under way after ground was officially broken last year. The circa 150,000m2 site build is progressing in accordance with the anticipated programme with piling works nearing completion and factory foundations being installed. Foundation work will be followed by steelworks and factory fit out in the 12-15 month window the follows.
Sumitomo has sought to involve the local supply chain in as many aspects of the project works as possible with a construction spend split, to date, of 55% in Scotland and 45% in the rest of the UK and Ireland. The facility will provide employment for 150 workers, with knock-on effects expected to increase the number of indirect employment opportunities by at least double the full-time employee count.
