SNP 'Hypocritical' Over Longannet

The Scottish Conservatives have branded SNP comments on Longannet as 'hypocritical'.

The Energy Minister Fergus Ewing has blamed the UK Government for the Fife plant's closure, saying differences between transmission charges, has led to its planned closure in March 2016.

But the Tories say an alternative system suggested by the Nationalists would cost energy bill payers in Scotland an additional £7 billion. The party also claims Scotland is over-producing electricity at 11GW against a peak demand of 5.4GW.

Scottish Conservative Energy spokesman Murdo Fraser said: "It was utterly predictable that the SNP would rush to blame Westminster for the closure of a Scottish power station.

"What would that do for fuel poverty?
 
"But the fact is the high transmission costs the Scottish Government are citing are partly driven by its own obsession for expensive and unreliable wind energy. “And if it was to pursue its ‘postage stamp’ system, experts have already said this would add an extra £7 billion onto the bills of energy customers.
 
"It’s not surprising Scottish Power would want a massive cash transfer from consumers to its bottom line, but it’s astonishing to see the SNP shamelessly support that."

Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said: “Scottish Power has set out the reasons why Longannet is having to close, and they did so very clearly, stating that essentially it has to close because of the very high costs, the carbon tax and also the transmission charging.

"And it made it absolutely clear that in the case of the transmission charges, that the power station in Scotland pays around £40 million extra – £40 million more than it would were it located down south.

“I urged the UK government to form a joint committee to look at storage solutions two years ago. Ed Davie turned me down then, I’ve repeated the solution to Amber Rudd. I incidentally asked Amber Rudd, as well as having asked the Prime Minister before, to intervene in Longannet and sadly they refused to lift a finger.”