SSE Connections Northern Scotland

[jamieled]

This was the most obvious place to note this information, but mods can move it if I missed somewhere better.

 

Last Friday I took SSE (the DNO in our area) up on their offer of meeting to discuss our grid connection. From a previous post on our blog some people might remember this is at the higher end of most quotes (~£15k). At this meeting I gleaned he following information, which I thought might be of use to others:

 

1) It is now policy  that SSE will not hang a transformer on a pole supporting a  33kv line, it must be tee'd off on a spur. This is a bit of a pain as it requires around an extra 10m minimum. I'm sure this is fairly recent as I haven't seen it elsewhere.

2)It's also now policy that they will allow transformers to run at ~20% over their rated capacity before they upgrade them (this was confirmed as a recent change).

3) For those of you looking at a connection with a high cost in the north of Scotland, there is a trust which apparently gives out grants of up to 50% of the connection cost. I don't know how often they do this, or the chances of success but I will definitely be looking into it (http://www.shect.org).

 

 

[recoveringbuilder]

It depends where in Scotland you are , we were not in an area that we could get a grant and that is why as a last resort I had to make an official complaint about the £25k quote they gave us, luckily I was successful and got it down to under a fifth of the price!

[newhome]

@Christine Walker sounds like you need to tell @jamieled how you went about raising a complaint. That could be a way of getting an initial price cut and then apply for the grant based on the reduced cost. 

[jamieled]

While I'd be interested, we're in slightly different situations. Different geographical area, different DNO. There are no connection points within ~1km of us and so we were always going to need a new transformer and the other gubbins. Once I see a detailed quote I'll obviously be scrutinising it!

[Thedreamer]

I applied and was awarded a grant from SSE. 

 

Definitely, worth doing as it took about an evening to pull some text together and complete some costings for the build (this was in 2014/2015!).

 

Unless you have a straightforward connection you should never accept the first quote.

 

 

 

 

[ProDave]

17 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

Unless you have a straightforward connection you should never accept the first quote.

 

VERY true.

 

By digging (and back filling afterwards) the connection pit myself, I saved almost £1000 from the first quote.

[Thedreamer]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

VERY true.

 

By digging (and back filling afterwards) the connection pit myself, I saved almost £1000 from the first quote.

 

We also saved thousands by supplying our own ducting.

 

This was actually the first tangible job we did connected to the build and has also been most stressful.

 

So glad we isolated the stresses associated were putting in services a few years before we started. 

 

 

 

 

 

[newhome]

1 hour ago, jamieled said:

There are no connection points within ~1km of us 

 

I thought you had pylons right next to your plot? Or are those not able to be used to connect to? Probably my naivety on how these things connect. 

[jamieled]

@newhome you are correct, there is 33kv line right next to us.  I was being a bit vague. When I mentioned, no connection points I really meant no existing connections. So as it's a 33kv line we'll need to pay for a transformer and the rest of it as running a cable ~1km was going to be too expensive (would probably have required a lot of road digging).

[ProDave]

I am surprised your quote is as much as £15K for 1 pole, 1 transformer and a spur.

 

Unfortunately there is not a lot of contestable work there, probably the only bit you can do to save money is put your meter box right at the base of (attached to?) the transformer pole, then the cable from there to the house is yours.  Alternatively did the trench from there to the meter position and lay a duct ready for them.

 

Useful information on the grant scheme, I assume you will be applying for that.

[newhome]

If the pylon is on your land do they have a Wayleave that allows them to site it there? If not you could ask them to remove it potentially with the compromise that they facilitate you being able to hook up to it. 

[Stones]

Wish I'd known about that trust / grant scheme on our last build.  @jamieled out of interest, how did you find out about the trust?

[jamieled]

@Stones - the SSE quoter told me about it. I think they have to treat all customers the same in terms of connection costs, and so they end up saying 'here's a quote that'll cost you a fortune and by the way you might get a grant if you look here'. I think the trust dishing out the grants is probably a result of SSE profit!

 

@newhome the wayleave situation is a bit complicated, but that is an option.