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£30m for a Shetland Spaceport — What Remote, Serious Power Really Looks Like

Generator man
2 days ago
2 min read

The UK government is putting £30 million into SaxaVord Spaceport on Unst, Shetland — the northernmost point in the country, and the UK’s first fully licensed spaceport. The funding is meant to help build two more launchpads and a second hangar, and to unlock further private investment. Companies want to fly small commercial rockets from a former RAF base at the edge of the map.

Unst is not an easy place to run anything. Weather, distance, and the simple fact that you cannot send someone “round the corner” for a part. If power fails in a launch window, you do not get a quiet retry on Monday morning. You miss the slot.

That is a useful way to think about standby power anywhere.

SaxaVord’s chief executive said they are building the spaceport “for the thousandth as much as the first launch.” That is exactly how we specify generators and changeover panels. Not for the photo on day one. For the start that has to happen at 2 a.m. in February, five years later.

What we put on a site

At GES Power we work with strong, supported brands — industrial machines with UK parts, documentation and a service trail. Caterpillar, Perkins-based sets and the high-specification ATS panels we build and install ourselves. The point is not a badge on the canopy. The point is that when you call, there is an engineer, a spare and a company that still answers.

A proper job for us looks like this:

  • A site survey that measures the real load, not a guess from the incoming fuse

  • A generator sized and derated for how the site actually uses power

  • A motorised ATS so the building can transfer automatically or be switched by hand

  • Cabling that matches the protective device — not whatever was left on the drum

  • Commissioning, handover and a service relationship after we leave

That is what “supported” means. Survey, supply, install, maintain.

Why remote and critical sites cannot bluff it

A spaceport makes the lesson obvious. So does a food plant, a rural commercial site, a cold store or a club that has to open on Saturday. Distance does not change the physics. It only changes how long you wait if the wrong machine is on the pad.

We would rather sell you the right UK-supported set once than explain a no-start when the mains has already gone. The brands we use are chosen because they can be looked after. The panels we fit are chosen because they give you control. The service is the bit that turns a generator into a system.

Britain is putting money into launching from Shetland because space is now treated as infrastructure, not a novelty. Power on your site is infrastructure too.

If you want a generator and ATS package that is specified, installed and still supported after the crane has gone, talk to us.

GES Power Ltd — UK brands, UK service, built for the thousandth start.

 
 
 

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