‘Net zero power station next to our home is so loud we can’t even go for a walk’

“The whole point of moving here was for the peace and quiet, but now we can’t even go for a walk.” Craig Stratton, 42, moved to New Deer, in Aberdeenshire with his family in 2014, yearning for a quieter existence.

The village, home to 620 people, was once a vast expanse of unspoiled countryside, home to three pubs, and just as many churches.

But in the past decade New Deer’s open spaces have become something of a hotspot for electricity infrastructure. Wind turbines are now dotted throughout the countryside and power lines strung together by pylons have spread across the land.

Chief among them is the New Deer substation, which was energised in 2021 by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission, the Scottish equivalent to England’s National Grid ESO.

There are now more than 300 such terminals in the country, according to the National Grid – and some 40 more will be required to meet the electricity demand of a net zero Britain.

Residents in New Deer say the substations are so noisy and disruptive that they want to move out.

Mr Stratton says work began just weeks after his family moved in. “The increase in traffic was massive,” he said. 

“It’s just dirt roads around here, and there was always heavy machinery and water stuff getting delivered, so it was quite a big disruption. We had small children at the time, so going out for walks and things like that was impossible.”

The substation is now complete and roads have returned to normal but Mr Stratton is looking to sell up and move away – because a second terminal is set to appear right next to the first. Fittingly, it is called New Deer 2.

A second substation in the pipeline

As more households opt for heat pumps, electric cars, and solar panels, Britain will need more electricity, much of which is generated by the wind turbines on and off the coast in Scotland.

This is where the New Deer substation comes in. SSEN Transmission first submitted its application to build the terminal in 2014, and construction was completed just before lockdown.

The transmission terminal connects roughly 15 miles of 275kV power lines from the offshore wind farm in Moray, off the coast near Peterhead. In time, SSEN hopes it will be upgraded to carry 400kV, which will mean replacing those power lines.

The proposed new station is “required to enable the connection of a new 400kV overhead line between Beauly, Blackhillock, New Deer and Peterhead as well as to provide a connection for new offshore renewable generation schemes in the north of Scotland,” a spokesman for SSEN Transmission said.

At present, plans for the second terminal are yet to be put into action – meaning Aberdeenshire Council has yet to become involved. The company is currently canvassing residents as to how to proceed.

A spokesman said: “We will do all we can to balance the views of local communities against the key environmental, technical, and economic factors we have to consider in the development of this critical national infrastructure.”

SSEN Transmission says it has disseminated roughly 4,000 flyers through the doors of Aberdeenshire residents inviting them to a consultation in the village hall.

But half of the homes immediately adjacent to the construction site visited by The Telegraph claim not to have received one or to have heard about the consultation notice through local newspaper articles.

House price impact

Substations like New Deer exist to connect power lines both over-and underground. However, the presence of infrastructure can have a devastating effect on house prices.

Research by Oxford Brookes University found living close to overhead power lines reduced the selling price of a house by up to 38pc. Homes within 300m of a pylon sold for as much as a third of the price of similar properties in the area, the 2005 study found.

It added that valuers and agents underestimate the effect of overhead high-voltage lines on property values. Property advisers estimate the negative effect on house prices to be much lower – at five to 10pc.

Those looking to sell may also find it more difficult to find a potential buyer. Homes near overhead power lines can stay on the market for months longer than properties further away, and vendors often have to accept 12pc less than the asking price.

‘A low, constant howling’

Julia Smith, 51, who works in administration at the NHS, lives far enough away from the terminal to have avoided the worst of the traffic, but can still see the development from her back garden.

The initial consultation for the New Deer substation had promised to plant trees around the substation to obscure it, but no such trees ever materialised.

Aberdeenshire Council says that while planting trees was included in the planning permission for the substation, the local authority was not responsible for any landscaping.

“We were assured that we wouldn’t be able to see it, and that was an utter lie,” Ms Smith says. “You can even hear it, especially on a quiet night.”

Ms Smith describes the noise made by the substation as a “low, constant howling”, adding that the lights of the substation were on “24/7”. “I think it’s disheartening that they told us things that did not actually happen,” she adds.

Elsewhere in New Deer, landlords of rental properties say the substation had forced them to cut rents and would likely impact the value of their investment when they come to sell up.

Other homeowners said that, like Mr Stratton, they were planning to sell up to escape the planned second substation, but refused to speak on record for being branded Nimbys.

“We have lived here for thirteen years and made a happy family home with our young son. However we cannot face living there with the prospect of this hanging over us for the next seven years or so,” one couple said.

Despite the perceived animosity towards so-called Nimbys, roughly three-quarters of Britons are concerned about the impact of net zero infrastructure on their local area, according to the UK’s gas networks – National Gas, WWU, SGN, NGN and Cadent.

A survey conducted by the networks found only 12pc of people were very likely to support the installation of transmission lines and power stations – dropping to 11pc when the installation would be in view of respondents’ homes.

Roughly one in five London-based respondents were found to be supportive of infrastructure changes – the highest of any region – despite the unlikelihood of such developments being possible in dense urban areas.

For Britain to meet its target for decarbonisation by 2050, gas as a fuel source will be phased out in favour of renewable electricity. This means that eventually the gas grid will be replaced by an enhanced electricity network.

National Grid ESO, which is responsible for the rollout of pylons and substations, estimates dozens more power lines will need to make their way across the country to carry the electricity generated by Britain’s on- and off-shore wind farms.

Most of these projects will be built in low-population areas like New Deer, but development sites elsewhere in Britain have become battlegrounds between construction companies and homeowners.

In October, a report by the National Infrastructure Commission found that “17 new nationally significant electricity transmission projects will be required by 2030 to support electrification, a more than fourfold increase on historic rates”.

The surge in infrastructure investment, the NIC says, was necessary as Britain is currently producing more renewable energy than it can transmit.

In 2022, the network constraint costs were paid for through household energy bills – the Commission estimated that in 2022 energy bill payers paid between £600m and £1bn due to the grid’s limitations.

“By 2030 this is estimated to rise to between £1.4bn and £3bn per year, unless the capacity of the electricity transmission grid is expanded,” the report added.

Julia Prescot, deputy chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, says: “Communities hosting such infrastructure get some clearer direct benefits in return such as funding for local amenities, though of course, they will benefit alongside everyone else from cheaper energy bills in future as a result of moving off gas onto cheaper renewable energy sources.

“It is only right that communities affected by new pylons and other major transmission equipment see improvements in local infrastructure like electric vehicle chargepoints, and a clearer menu of direct benefits for major schemes should embrace these kinds of improvements.”

Some fortunate landowners near net zero developments do see an immediate benefit. Developers have been known to offer compensation in cash to those willing to part with land – typically farmers – in exchange for allowing development nearby, though this is little comfort to those with more modest properties.