SSE Renewables and its partner TotalEnergies said the first Vestas turbine of a total of 114 was commissioned and connected to the grid in the early hours of Monday morning. 

The £3 billion Seagreen project will be Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm and the world’s deepest fixed bottom wind farm with its deepest foundation due to be installed at 59 metres below sea level in December.

The 1,075 MW wind farm is expected to be fully operational in the first half of 2023.

Paul Cooley, director of global offshore wind at SSE Renewables, said: “Seagreen has achieved a number of key milestones to date, 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.”

TotalEnergies entered into an agreement with SSE Renewables to acquire a 51% stake in the Seagreen project in June 2020. Seagreen has an installed capacity of 1075 megawatts (MW).

When fully operational, the site will produce around 5 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity per year, enough to power the equivalent of 1.6 million households.

Vincent Stoquart, senior vice president renewables of TotalEnergies 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.”