Shetland’s Viking Windfarm Scandal

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Hugh Sharman

OFGEM have opened an investigation into constraint payments for Moray East offshore wind farm:

Ofgem is investigating the compliance of Moray Offshore Windfarm (East) Ltd (the owner and operator of Moray East Offshore Windfarm) with the requirements of condition 20A of the Electricity Generation Standard Licence Conditions (known as the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition, or “TCLC”).

A transmission constraint is defined in the TCLC as any limit on the ability of the national electricity transmission system, or any part of it, to transmit the power supplied onto the system to the location where the demand for that power is situated. In order to manage transmission constraints, National Energy System Operator (“NESO”) routinely uses the balancing mechanism (“BM”) to increase and decrease the amount of electricity produced by different generators.

Typically, when managing a transmission constraint, NESO will only have a limited number of alternatives available to it. This creates a risk that generators could exploit their position by charging NESO excessive prices to reduce their output. The TCLC prohibits them from doing so.

Since it began operating in the BM in September 2021, Moray East Offshore Windfarm has been regularly instructed by NESO to reduce its generation to manage transmission constraints. Its bid prices since then appear expensive relative to the expected marginal cost of reducing generation for this generator. Our investigation will assess whether these bid prices were excessive during periods of constraint.  

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/investigation-moray-offshore-windfarm-east-limiteds-compliance-tclc

According to the Telegraph, Moray East was paid £100 million in the two years to September 2023.

The problem is the usual one we see regularly – Moray East is situated off the North East coast of Scotland. When there is too wind, the transmission system cannot cope with the flow of electricity to south where the demand is.

https://www.morayeast.com/project/about-moray-east

Leaving aside the question of whether Moray East has done anything wrong or not, the real guilt for this abuse of public money lies with whoever allowed this wind farm to be built in the first place in a location where it would not be possible to fully utilise its output.

Because of political decisions made over this project and many others like it in northern Scotland, we are now faced with a bill running into tens of billions, for upgrading the grid.

As we know, these decisions were made in the mad, headlong rush to decarbonise, alongside the SNP’s obsession with an “energy independent” Scotland.

But amidst all of this waste of money, maybe the biggest scandal of the lot is what has been going on up in the Shetlands, where the giant Viking onshore wind farm has begun operating.

Originally proposed in 2005, it has led to growing concerns about its environmental impact.

As long ago as 2019, the Herald reported that the project was tearing the island community apart:

It is an issue that has divided a community for more than a decade.

When plans for a giant wind farm to be built on pristine peatland on Shetland were proposed in 2005, it was presented to the islanders as a community-owned enterprise with the potential to earn them £37 million a year.

But after 14 years and growing concerns over Shetland’s fragile biodiversity being shattered by the 155 meter turbines being built on pristine peatland and the infrastructure required to construct them, hundreds of islanders are now calling for the project to be scrapped.

Frank Hay, chairman of Sustainable Shetland, an action group formed in 2009 to take on the council-owned Viking Energy Shetland (VES) and partner Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE)’s multi-million pound Viking Wind Farm, said: “It’s basically economics against the environment. The scale of the wind farm and where they are proposing to build the turbines, it’s simply not right.”

The risk of peatslides is just one of the concerns held by local meteorologist and geologist Allen Fraser. He said: “Most of the access roads are floating roads on peat more than five metres deep, which will disrupt the natural drainage into the valleys, resulting in erosion and peatslides.

“Carbon release and pollution risk was not properly investigated. It is clear from the works already begun that planning and environmental constraints placed on the developers are being circumvented or ignored.”

Mr Fraser said: “The wind farm and others granted or in the planning process will stretch in a practically unbroken line through the length of the islands for more than 70 kilometres, all on peat, on an island chain of low hills that is 110 km long and only 10 km wide at the widest point.

“Access roads and power lines, along with at least 12 super quarries, will 
criss-cross and permanently scar the hills for 150 km.”

Richard Lindsay, head of Environmental and Conservation Research at the University of East London, who has visited the site, said: “The simple fact is that just 30cm of peat over one hectare contains the same amount of carbon as one hectare of tropical rainforest – around 280 tonnes.

Campaigners have argued that Shetland cannot support the £700m interconnector cable that would transmit energy from the islands to the Scottish mainland. Mr Fraser said: “Not one amp of power generated by these giant windfarms is for use in Shetland, it is all for export down the cable. There is no guarantee of any community benefit after the shareholders and owners of the windfarms have taken their cut.”

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17858289.green-energy-scheme-tearing-island-community-apart

The campaigners were right to complain about the interconnector.  Hans Marter of Shetland News takes up the story with this new article:

What was promoted as the UK’s “most productive onshore wind farm” is turning out to be one of the country’s most poorly performing.

Rather than producing electricity at a load factor of around 50 per cent, as forecast and promoted by owner SSE Renewables, the Viking Energy wind farm has so far been churning out electricity at a rate of just 17 per cent of what is potentially possible.

The 103-turbine project became operational in summer last year.

The average load factor for onshore wind farms in the UK currently stands at 26.34 per cent, according to Renewables UK. For offshore projects the average output rises to just over 40 per cent.

The £600 million wind farm in the central mainland of Shetland is standing idle for long periods due to constraints and bottlenecks in the national grid network.

The Viking wind farm ranked third for the highest amount of energy going unused in the UK in 2024 as reported by Shetland News in January.

The SSE-owned project saw over 464,000 MWh of energy constrained in the final five months of the year, data from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) shows.

Only two wind farms – Seagreen and Moray East – had higher totals, with both being offshore developments.

The 443MW wind farm was supposed to power as many as half a million households, but industry insiders have warned for a long time that any new wind farm project in the north of Scotland was in danger of becoming ‘stranded’ until the national grid is upgraded.

SSE Renewables is however cashing in on constraint payments for the time Viking is not producing any energy.

Chair of local campaign group Sustainable Shetland, Frank Hay, said he was not surprised about SSE being coy about the Viking load factor.

“As is plain to see, this wind farm is very much a part-time operator. Perversely, the Viking wind farm seems to operate mainly when the winds are light,” Hay said.

“It seems ridiculous that the grid inadequacy on mainland UK was not obvious when approval of this wind farm was being considered.

“Unfortunately, it will probably be years before the necessary grid upgrades will be completed and Shetland’s ‘world class wind’ can be fully utilised.

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2025/04/14/viking-energys-power-output-drops

So there we have it!

£1.3 billion has been spent building Viking and its interconnector, for little apparent benefit for the Islanders or the country at large, who will one way or another end up paying the bill.

Meanwhile it is debatable whether it will actually reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, given the devastation wrought on the peatlands.

But at least its developer, SSE Renewables, can boast:

“Green energy from Viking will deliver a significant contribution to climate change targets and help Scotland’s transition to net zero emissions by 2045 and provide a vital source of economic diversification for the islands”

It’s the sort of economic diversification the Shetlanders could do without, I suspect!