SSE has submitted a planning application to Aberdeenshire Council proposing to install a ‘black start’ facility at the gas-fired Peterhead Power Station.

A black start is the procedure to recover from a total or partial shutdown of the electricity system following a failure, when power stations require a source of electricity from outside the normal grid supply in order to be able to restart generation.

The Big Six firm said 31 diesel engines providing 18MW of power would be required to bring the facility back online.

These would not be connected to the grid and are expected to operate for less than 50 hours annually due to full power outages being “extremely rare”.

SSE said subject to receiving planning permission, it anticipates construction beginning towards the end of 2018, with the project to be commissioned around a year later.