SSEN Transmission has officially inaugurated a new offshore hub in Inverness, Scotland.
The facility, designed to accommodate up to 100 individuals, is expected to attract the supply chain to the Highlands and serve as a collaborative space for all companies involved in projects there.
The Inverness hub office, refurbished from a previously unused area within SSEN's existing building, offers desk space, meeting rooms and areas for collaboration.
Reflecting the local heritage, its meeting rooms have been named after iconic bridges in the region, such as Dornoch, Cromarty, Kylesku and Ballachulish.
The facility is dedicated to supporting SSEN Transmission's Pathway to 2030 programme.
The programme is a £20bn ($26.12bn) initiative aimed at upgrading the electricity grid across the north of Scotland. It includes the development of new overhead lines, substations, converter stations and subsea cables.
The new hub is set to house teams focused on offshore high voltage direct current (HVDC) links, including significant subsea electricity projects.
The projects include the Western Isles HVDC Link and the Spittal to Peterhead HVDC Link, both currently under development, and the Orkney Link project, which will see the installation of a new high voltage alternating current (HVAC) subsea cable between Orkney and Caithness.
The hub's opening event welcomed representatives from 11 businesses and supply chain partners integral to the delivery of the Pathway to 2030 programme: Balfour Beatty, BAM, Hitachi Energy, J Murphy, Linxon, Morgan Sindall, Mott MacDonald, NKT, RJ McLeod, Robertson and the Sumitomo Electric Van Oord Consortium.
In addition to the new hub, SSEN Transmission is constructing a £17m ($22.2m) operations warehouse at Inverness Airport Business Park. The project, undertaken by Global Infrastructure, will be complete by spring 2025.
