Scotland’s Largest Offshore Windfarm Begins Generating Electricity

Scotland’s biggest offshore wind farm has begun generating electricity. Its operators confirmed that the first Vestas turbine was commissioned and connected to the grid on the 22^nd of August with the rest expected to be up and running by July 2023.

The £3bn Seagreen project, a joint venture between SSE Renewables and France’s TotalEnergies stands approximately 17 miles off the Angus coast in the North Sea and has been in development for more than a decade.

TotalEnergies entered into an agreement with SSE Renewables to acquire a 51% stake in the Seagreen project in June 2020.

According to TotalEnergies, the North Sea site will be the world’s deepest fixed bottom wind farm, with its deepest foundation due to be installed at 59 metres below sea level in December.

When fully operational the 1,075 MW wind farm will have 114 turbines able to generate 1.1 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, around 5 terawatt hours of renewable electricity per year, which is enough to power about 1.6 million homes, equivalent to two-thirds of Scotland’s housing stock. The wind farm’s output will be equivalent to about 60% of Scotland’s current offshore wind output. However, the electricity generated which connects into the network via a substation near Dundee will be distributed around the UK.

Each turbine will have a maximum tip height of 187m (614ft), which is about twice the height of the tower housing Big Ben.

Paul Cooley, director of global offshore wind at SSE Renewables said:

"We often talk about key milestones along a project's journey but to see this turbine turning in the North Sea and to have reached first power safely, is a fantastic achievement for everyone connected to the project. The project has already brought benefits to the local community, the UK supply chain and, once completed, Seagreen will make a significant contribution to Scotland and the UK’s ambitious renewable energy targets."

SSE said that the Seagreen project will play an important role in the UK achieving its renewable energy targets.

The cost of electricity from wind has decreased rapidly by 44-78% from its peaks between 2007 and 2010 due to the falling costs of wind turbines.

Since 2009, electricity generation from wind power has increased by at least 715%.

Senior vice president of renewables at TotalEnergies, Vincent Stoquart said that the project will help the fossil fuel major meet its target of generating 35GW of renewable electricity capacity worldwide by 2025.

He said.

“We are delighted to announce the start of power generation from Seagreen, our first offshore wind farm in the UK North Sea. This marks a new step in the development of TotalEnergies’ offshore activities capacity. This milestone will contribute directly to our objective of reaching 35 GW of renewable electricity capacity worldwide by 2025.”

At the height of the construction phase, the project is expected to support about 3,000 jobs both directly and indirectly. When the wind farm is fully operational it should support about 700 jobs with half based in Scotland.

Steve Wilson, programme director of Seagreen said:

“This is a significant project that’s very technologically innovative for the renewables industry. We’re installing a windfarm at a very difficult site with complex, rocky conditions.”

The construction involves “suction bucket” technology for the bright yellow wind jackets, or foundations, which were assembled at the Port of Nigg, near Inverness.

Developers are hopeful that it will eventually push down the cost of energy by reducing the UK’s reliance on expensive imported gas.

According to Scottish renewables, Scotland has around 1.9GW of offshore wind installed but the Scottish government has set a target of increasing this to an ambitious 11GW by 2030.

The government has recently announced wind farm agreements for three new developments in the waters around Shetland. These projects are expected to generate a total of 2.8GW of electricity.

Earlier in the year, the chief executive of SSE, Alistair Phillips-Davies stressed the importance of ramping up investment in “low-carbon infrastructure” such as wind power saying that it was a vital step towards tackling the current energy crisis, which he blamed on the UK’s “reliance on imported gas”.

The launch of the Seagreen project provides a rare bright spot for the UK’s energy supply as gas shortages in Europe have threatened to bring potential blackouts to the UK this winter and even higher bills for energy consumers.

Unfortunately, it’s not a short-term fix but the long-term fix is to deploy as much low carbon generation as possible.

There is no doubt that the surging price of gas has sharpened the focus on renewable energy.

As the UK’s ‘national clean energy champion’ SSE is committed to deploying renewable energy technologies. SSE Group is investing around £7m a day on critical low-carbon infrastructure to facilitate the transition to net zero. SSE has recently purchased the project development rights for its first solar project in England from the developer Stark Energy. The project will deliver 30MW of clean energy as part of its ambitious £12.5bn investment programme. SSE regards solar energy as a complementary technology to other sources of renewable technology such as wind power. The 30MW solar farm at Littleton Pastures is located near Evesham in Worcestershire. Once complete in late 2023, the 77-acre site will be capable of powering some 9,400 homes.

TotalEnergies sees its role as a broad energy company operating in accordance with the Paris agreement, with a view to achieving, carbon neutrality in all global activities by 2050.