SSE announces completion of windfarm and subsea cable

SSE announced the completion of its Viking windfarm and the subsea HVDC cable. Photo: SSE.

The UK’s most productive onshore windfarm has been completed in the isles, with its owner boasting it could power up to 500,000 homes.

SSE’s Viking Energy Windfarm was completed alongside the HVDC subsea cable which connects Shetland to the British mainland.

Together, the projects represent more than £1bn of investment by businesses within the SSE Group. 

SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said both projects were “big engineering achievements.”

“Shetland and the wider North Sea have long supported the country’s energy security and now they are playing a significant role in decarbonising our power system,” Mr Phillips-Davies said.

“But it has taken nearly two decades for these projects to move from concept to completion and if we are serious about delivering clean power by 2030 – less than 2,000 days away – we need to make it much easier and faster to build this kind of mission-critical infrastructure.”

Viking’s 103 Vestas turbines will generate 443MW of installed wind-powered capacity and be capable of generating around 1.8TWh of renewable electricity annually – enough to power the equivalent of almost half a million typical homes each year.

While the subsea cable was installed in three campaigns using specialist cable-laying vessel NKT Victoria throughout 2022 and 2023, with the final section installed on the seabed last autumn. With final energisation now complete Shetland will be connected to the GB electricity grid for the first time ever. 

The link will provide green energy for the islands and allow power to flow from the UK mainland, giving security of supply.