SSE Renewables Offshore Windfarm to generate £2.4bn for the UK economy

SSE Renewables has announced today that its 84 turbine, 588MW Beatrice Offshore Windfarm, which was completed last month, will generate enough green energy to power 450,000 homes every year. It is the fourth largest offshore wind farm in the world and a new independent analysis has found the windfarm will generate £2.4bn of value to the UK economy over the 25-year lifetime of the project and including the construction and development phase.

The largest offshore wind project in Scotland, Beatrice Offshore Windfarm was developed by Scottish-headquartered energy firm, SSE Renewables (40%), with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (35%) and Red Rock Power Limited (25%).

In Ireland and the UK, SSE Renewables is the leading developer of offshore wind energy with 3.3GW of consented projects in UK and Irish waters. Its consented pipeline includes Phase 2 of Arklow Bank Wind Park off the Co. Wicklow coast in the south Irish Sea, which is being actively developed by SSE Renewables and has the potential to generate around 800MW of green energy.

SSE Renewables is also currently assessing two new offshore wind farm sites off the Irish East Coast. In June, the company submitted Foreshore Licence applications for approval to carry out survey works to assess the suitability of two new separate offshore wind farm sites in Irish waters, which could generate over 1.5GW of renewable energy combined.

With regards to the project in Scotland, according to the new analysis by BiGGAR Economics, commissioned by the joint venture partners, and published today, Beatrice contributed £460m to the Scottish economy during the development and construction phases, as part of a total £1.3bn contribution to the wider UK economy.  Now beginning its 25-year operational phase, Beatrice’s economic benefit is set to be even greater, with the project expected to add £72m of value to the UK economy on average every year, of which £34m will be in Scotland.

Jim Smith, Managing Director of lead development partner SSE Renewables said: “Beatrice delivers transformative socio-economic benefits to the UK, Scotland and to the regions, not just during construction but for decades to come. This is borne out in the publication today of an important independent analysis which demonstrates that Beatrice will deliver a multi-billion pound boost to the UK economy over its full lifetime, from initial development to the end of its operational life.

“Our experience at Beatrice also provides learnings which SSE Renewables will apply to maximise the expected socio-economic benefits from our 7GW pipeline of future offshore wind projects.”

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => We now get over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you.

Home

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking