Large scale site with offsite works
Location
London
Solution
Landrights, Leases & Wayleaves
This large-scale project required a high capacity connection and involved several different land rights agreements from a primary substation lease, third party wayleaves and cooperation agreements between various electricity companies, linking together across a wide geographical area of approximately eight miles from point of connection to supply.
The point of connection was a DNO Primary Substation with cables running through their operational site as well as an adjacent plot of non-operational land also owned by the DNO. ESL were engaged to assist in the acquisition of rights over this land from the point that the initial application was made to conduct works on the operational land, allowing us to get a head start on the complex series of agreements required by the DNO’s standard process. We had to fine tune the design to accommodate needs of another developer at the same time and negotiate a partial release from a third party who was an option holder for a proposed solar farm.
The strip of land used to leave the primary substation already contained a significant number of services, and the new installation was shared between our client IDNO, a second IDNO and spare ducting allowing a second DNO to use the route at a later date. Apportioning the available space between the stakeholders was a key challenge that was ultimately resolved.
The most difficult aspect was adjusting the cable route near the point of supply to minimise disruption of access to the nearby Industrial Estate and keeping the Data Centre’s neighbours on-side. We looked at various options including a soft dig that required Environment Agency Consents but eventually settled on the road option on the Grantors land and minimised the disruption.
We were able to accelerate the standard timescales and achieve completion of the grant of rights over the DNO primary substation several months ahead of schedule. This project involved the management of many individual moving pieces to come together swiftly for the site’s energisation.
