SEAS passionately supports increasing offshore wind energy to help us get to Net Zero. We are championing innovative but practical, integrated solutions for transmission network design, that are cheaper for all of Britain's consumers, faster to deliver and better in terms of environmental and community impact.

We propose pooling wind power offshore and transporting it closer to where it is needed (London/South East) using subsea cables, coming onshore at brownfield sites. Our modular offshore grid plans are in line with the leading European wind power design strategies (e.g. Elia in Belgium). The cost benefits of our designs are supported by figures from National Grid ESO's own research about the overall system benefits of offshore integration.

We reject current outdated plans to bring multiple wind projects onshore on the Suffolk Coast, effectively industrialising protected areas of countryside with unnecessary onshore infrastructure, an unacceptable cumulative economic, social and environmental impact, when better solutions are available.

YES to Offshore Wind, NO to Onshore Plans

Offshore Grid is Best

Better, Cheaper, Faster

BIG NEWS – NAUTILUS GOES TO GRAIN

Today, National Grid's Ben Wilson, President of National Grid Ventures confirmed that if the project proceeds, Nautilus would connect at the Isle of Grain, Kent - READ the...

Starmer Stamps on Regulators – Reassures his New Friends Iberdrola and Big Business

On 13 October, Starmer singled out just one project in his rallying speech to global investors.   It was ScottishPower’s EA2, costing £4billion, generating 1GW clean energy and...

National Grid Awarded £870k to Explore New Offshore Solutions

SEAS welcomes the news that National Grid has been awarded these monies to explore the benefits of superconducting cables and offshore islands/ platforms. Offshore grid...

Open Letter to Chris Stark and Fintan Slye

Offshore4sure has written an open letter 'The faster, more cost-efficient way to Net Zero', to Chris Stark who is heading up the Government's Mission Control 2030 and Fintan Slye...

SEAS Response to Ofgem Consultation

​ SEAS recently responded to Ofgem's Regional Energy Strategic Plan policy framework consultation. We stressed the importance of spatial energy strategy planning and that it...

BBC Radio 4 Today Programme Interview

Great coverage for SEAS today with Fiona Gilmore interviewed by Nick Robinson on BBC RADIO 4's TODAY programme. Fiona spoke about the better 'Offshore Grid' solutions available...

‘With One Voice’ Aldeburgh Beach Rally was a HUGE SUCCESS!

On the 1st of September an amazing c. 500 strong group of supporters gathered together beside the Scallop on Aldeburgh Beach for our Offshore4sure 'With Once Voice' Beach Rally. ...

Michael Shanks Scraps OCSS

“This announcement from the Minister for Energy scrapping the OCSS is not necessarily bad news.” SEAS suspected that this award made by the OCSS was a way to halt sensible pilot...

SEAS Response to Ofgem Consultation re Accelerated Funding & Approval Framework

We have been bombarded with developer and Ofgem consultations recently including this 'Consultation on the proposed regulatory funding and approval framework for onshore...

Supporter Email Exchange With Ofgem re Nautilus Consultation

One of our supporters recently had an interesting exchange with an 'Engagement Analyst' at Ofgem, who replies to some emails on behalf of Ofgem's CEO Jonathan Brearley. See the...

SEAS Response to Ofgem’s Nautilus Consultation

Nautilus has changed plans deciding to come to Friston after all, and Ofgem has held a consultation on these changes for which we had to submit our views by 15 August. The...

SEAS Response to Sea Link Additional Consultation

In Newsletter 149 we introduced the changes that NGET are proposing in the Sea Link Project Update and we advised supporters of how to submit guidance and the points to focus on...

Positive Press About Offshore Grids

Some great news coverage recently signalling the benefits of offshore grids and offshore platforms & energy islands. Sir Kier Starmer has said it doesn't matter where good...

SEAS Open Letter to the Press

See SEAS Open Letter to the Press and key Organisations reproduced here below: Britain’s Winning Strategy for Energy Infrastructure 2025 to 2050 An open letter calling for...

Energy Election Hustings 9 June

To a packed house of 280 local residents, Bishop Martin chaired the Energy Election Hustings Q&A session with good humour and grace. The four political candidates...

New Report ‘Greening the Great Grid Upgrade’

Concerns about a lack of well-thought-through policies and joined-up thinking about National Grid’s Great Grid Upgrade have prompted the Suffolk Preservation Society (SPS) to...

Westminster Hall Debate on Pylons & Upgrades to the National Grid

The debate was called by Matt Warman MP (Conservative, Boston and Skegness)   WATCH the excellent speeches by Wera Hobhouse HERE and by Therese Coffey HERE   Key Points: There is...

National Grid hypocrisy over subsea HVDC cables for offshore solutions

National Grid are using subsea HVDC cables on multiple projects, making claims this technology is too expensive a nonsense. National Grid has multiple projects in the pipeline...

Therese Coffey speaks out: “my constituents have been shafted”.

Therese Coffey has been busy on our behalf. On 29 March, Suffolk Coastal's MP spoke with forthright candour to the Delegated Legislation Committee, which was considering the...

Ofgem’s vision for a future transmission network could be a meshed offshore grid

Good news. On 1 March 2024, Ofgem published a very important report recommending a future transmission network design resembling a meshed offshore grid. It was called: “Initial...

SEAS Response to the LionLink EIA Scoping Document

SEAS analysed LionLink’s massive Environmental Impact Scoping Report, and sent its formal response objecting on four counts:1) Roads and Traffic2) Tourism and Hospitality3)...

ITV Anglia 4 April – Hornsea 3 wind farm cables ploughing through 35 miles of Norfolk countryside

The onshore infrastructure for Hornsea 3, a 3gw offshore windfarm (the largest in the world) being built by Danish developer Orsted, involves 35miles of cable trenches ploughing...

Judicial Review Appeal Decision

⚠️⚠️ On Friday 22nd, THE JUDGMENT was handed down from the COURT of APPEAL, and we are SORRY to SHARE the NEWS that it went AGAINST Suffolk Energy Action Solutions. We will need...

EADT: Friston suffering ‘disproportionate harm’ councillors say

SEAS protested against unnecessary National Grid onshore infrastructure outside Suffolk County Council's Endeavour House office on Thursday 21 March ahead of their meeting. The...

SEAS on Politics East – East Anglia Study Publication

Great BBC article on their website and Politics East covered the publication of National Grid ESO's East Anglia Study Results, with SEAS Fiona Gilmore, Therese Coffey and Clive...

Exploding The Myths

EXPLODING THE MYTHS National Grid’s propaganda asserts the following claims. SEAS supporters should challenge their assertions. “Offshore solutions are not straightforward for...

Wake Up National Grid You Are Out Of Date

Last week, we were assailed with devastating news regarding LionLink’s plans:LionLink’s Non-Statutory Consultation documents, confirmed proposals for ANOTHER HUGE 26 m HIGH...

ITV Anglia featuring SEAS – LionLink decides preferred landfall sites at Southwold or Walberswick

See ITV Anglia's extended piece on LionLink's proposed landfall sites and its impact on the Suffolk Coast. National Grid has revealed the preferred landfall sites and cabling...

LionLink proposed landfall sites revealed.

National Grid has revealed the preferred landfall sites and cabling routes for the LionLink interconnector between Holland and the UK, with proposed landfall at Southwold or...

SEAS Meeting with Suffolk County Council

On 7 February there was a SEAS Meeting with Suffolk County Council, about SCC's unsatisfactory response to the Sealink consultation and the recent National Grid ESO East Anglia...

Ralph Fiennes on Sunday with Laura Kuennsberg

Wasn't it great to see Ralph Fiennes on Sunday with Laura Kuennsberg 11 February, in such eloquent and passionate form, what a terrific champion and knowledgeable advocate for...

SEAS on BBC Radio 4 with Evan Davis

Fiona Gilmore gets great balanced coverage + a poor response from National Grid.

Campaigners launch petition and film to counter National Grid’s Suffolk ‘energy hub’

Campaign group Suffolk Energy Action Solutions (SEAS) has launched a national petition and short documentary 'Coast' starring Ralph Fiennes to stop National Grid's infrastructure...

East Anglia Bylines Ralph Fiennes Article

Suffolk coast is under siege by National Grid NG's destructive infrastructure plans sparks a national petition and a powerful film 'Coast' appeal. Suffolk’s coastline, a haven of...

SEAS launch Petition along with Ralph Fiennes Film ‘Coast’

Please sign and share our National Petition! Alongside it is a brilliant new film 'COAST' made for SEAS by Ralph Fiennes and Director Charles Sturridge, with many film crew and...

EADT – National Grid ESO considers study on SEAS proposals

SEAS Fiona Gilmore believes National Grid ESO will carry out a 'comparative study' into bringing the cables onshore at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex VS a new substation at Friston.

BBC Article re SeaLink – SEAS quoted

Consultation on Suffolk-Kent Sea Link project ends after 1k responses. SEAS David McKenna says, "..the problem is over a number of decades the government has effectively...

SEAS Response to SeaLink Consultation

SEAS sent a detailed response to SeaLink about their recent Statutory Consultation, pushing back against their unsatisfactory consultation and misguided plans

SEAS in EADT – Concerns OCSS wind farm funding will ‘end Suffolk oasis’

Fiona Gilmore gets great balanced coverage + a poor response from National Grid.

ESNZ Commons Committee – ‘A flexible grid for the future’ with Fiona Gilmore

Examining how to reform the planning system to support the delivery of renewable energy generation, and what needs to be done to ensure the UK has the infrastructure it needs to...

UK’s bid for net zero in the balance due to grid ‘blind spot’

“....why ride roughshod over all the environmental protections in place for this area when there are alternative routes?” David Riches, WALL

EADT Therese Coffey at SEAS meeting, ‘unleashed’ by resignation

Suffolk Coastal MP Therese Coffey told a SEAS campaigners' meeting she has been 'unleashed' to help community groups fighting plans to route electricity cables through the...

URGENT PUBLIC MEETING – Saxmundham’s Energy Projects

National Grid's plans to site 3 Converter Stations on the East side of Sax. SEAS Fiona Gilmore will present the offshore alternative to industrialising Suffolk Coastal.

Sealink- BBC ‘Suffolk residents concerned about Sea Link cable project’

National Grid is planning Sealink a 90-mile (145km) project connecting Friston and Richborough in Kent, including connection points on land, to take excess energy out of Suffolk...

BBC Radio Suffolk – Aldeburgh: The Sea Link proposals

Interviews from the Sealink public consultation - featuring SEAS David McKenna

SEAS Response to LionLink Supplementary Non-Statutory Consultation

SEAS Response to LionLink Supplementary Non-Statutory Consultation

New York Times article featuring SEAS

'Green Energy Casts a Shadow Over a Cherished English Landscape' - Stanley Read visited East Anglia, writing about how "residents of East Anglia fear that planned power lines for...

BBC Look East – Latest Energy News

Prime Minister Richi Sunak struggles to justify current plans for onshore wind infrastructure and nuclear.

Great Libby Purves Time Article

Lack of energy plan risks panic-bulldozing - It’s time Government laid out what infrastructure is needed where, or we will rush into destroying our countryside

ABOUT SEAS

Suffolk Energy Action Solutions (SEAS), founded in August 2019, is a community group set up to campaign against the severe adverse impacts of the National Grid and Governments ill-conceived plans of making Friston and Suffolk Coastal into an Energy Hub. SEAS is in favour of offshore wind energy but against the current proposals for the delivery of that wind power to the grid which will have a devastating impact on a unique onshore environment, social health and wellbeing, the local tourist economy and coastal communities. SEAS has promoted for the last three years a smarter solution, using offshore integration and brownfield sites closer to where the power is needed.

THE STORY SO FAR

The launching of the SEA LINK (a subsea transmission cable from coastal Suffolk to Kent) and LION LINK (an Interconnector between coastal Suffolk and Holland) consultation process by National Grid combined with the Nautilus Interconnector and ScottishPower Renewables offshore windfarms East Anglia One North and East Anglia Two further reveals the hard evidence and leaves no doubt that Suffolk Coast and Heaths is threatened by an onslaught of energy infrastructure projects.

NEEDLESS DESTRUCTION

Current outdated plans would create one or two onshore Energy Superhubs within the coastal area and severely affect communities along the precious Heritage Coast from Southwold, Walberswick, and Dunwich to Thorpeness and Aldeburgh. Halesworth, Yoxford, Saxmundham, Leiston and all the villages between could be impacted during 10 years of construction compounding the traffic issues for the A12 and rural lanes which were never intended for mass industrialisation. Sizewell C will further exacerbate the congestion. Aldeburgh’s main arterial route the A1094 could become a no-go zone for visitors and emergency services may fail to be timely. The cumulative impact of these MULTIPLE PROJECTS would effectively industrialise this area of outstanding natural beauty and decimate the local nature-tourism reliant economy. This is NEEDLESS VANDALISM, given a better alternative is available now.

THE MODERN SOLUTION

An OFFSHORE GRID through the NORTH SEA CORRIDOR would avoid churning up rural areas, AONB, SSSI, SPA and prime farmland to reach multiple onshore substations and negate the outcry over 180 pylons cutting swathes through precious countryside from Norwich in Norfolk through Suffolk to Bramford on to Tilbury through Essex. Building onshore infrastructure at brownfield sites closer to where the power is needed would ensure better solutions for the local tourism economies, local communities and the environment.

Belgium, Germany, Holland and Denmark are already introducing these kinds of integrated offshore grids using offshore platforms and artificial islands for operation by 2030. There is no good reason why the UK cannot do the same. The North Sea Corridor is the modern way forward. Coastal Suffolk is a DEVIATION

A RISING TIDE OF OPPOSITION

There is a rising tide of opposition from across the political spectrum to current short-sighted proposals, MPs have formed ‘OFFSET’ a group to lobby for an offshore grid, have debated in Westminster and are actively seeking an OFFSHORE GRID. Essex and Norfolk community groups are also strongly opposing similar ill-conceived energy projects and the united call is for an OFFSHORE GRID connecting to brownfield sites nearer to where the power is needed.

WHY IS EAST ANGLIA IS BEING THROWN UNDER A BUS?

The harsh reality is that East Anglia is being thrown under a bus by DESNZ and National Grid as they instruct offshore wind farm developers to connect to National Grid Substations (many not even built) on the East Coast to deposit their offshore wind power ignoring the Holistic Network Design criteria being used elsewhere in the UK. This is madness when other North Sea countries are investing in offshore grids and using brownfield or industrialised sites close to where the power is needed.

WHAT CAN YOU DO

There is a better alternative that has already been developed by National Grid and proved deliverable These alternative plans are more cost efficient than the current proposals and require 50% less infrastructure, so is beneficial for the environment: an OFFSHORE GRID through the North Sea Corridor. These National Grid plans from 2015 and 2020 could be updated and implemented quickly. SEAS proposed alternative solution of a Modular Offshore Grid (MOG) can be implemented WITHIN THE SAME TIMESCALE as the current proposed plans, which we now understand have been delayed by two years.

“We destroy plants at our peril. Neither we nor any other animal can survive without them. The time has now come for us to cherish our green inheritance, not to pillage it – for without, we will surely perish.” Sir David Attenborough

Experts calculate that 81% of turtle doves have been lost in the East of England since the 1970s

Campaign With Us

We are asking you to write, to the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), see full details HERE

Yes to Offshore Wind Energy, Let's Do it Right