Eight miles off the Caithness coast in the Moray Firth, SSE has just installed the 84th and final turbine of the Beatrice offshore wind farm (Emily Gosden writes). When the £2.6 billion, 588-megawatt project is fully running this summer, it should generate enough electricity to power 450,000 homes — and enough cash to make a healthy return for the energy group.
In 2014, the government awarded a contract guaranteeing SSE an inflation-linked price of £140 for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity that Beatrice generates — more than £158 in today’s money, or roughly treble present market prices. The project, of which SSE owns 40 per cent, could be in line for £250 million a year in subsidies.
Shortly before it won the contract, SSE had