Our first offshore wind project set the scene for what would be Scotland's leading role in the development of deep water offshore wind. The Beatrice demonstration project (image on right) in 2006/2007 consisted of two 5MW turbines on jacket substructures in 45m water depth in the Moray Firth of the East Coast of Scotland.
This was the deepest fixed bottom offshore wind project in the world and that record stood until October 2023 when it was overtaken by another Scottish project, SSE Renewables' Seagreen 1 wind farm with foundations in 58.7m water depth.
At the time the Beatrice demo 5MW machines were also the largest deployed offshore wind turbines in the world and the jacket foundations were the first use of this well known oil and gas foundation technology in offshore wind. The developers involved, SSE Renewables and Talisman Energy, reflected this marriage of wind and oil and gas know-how in what was a rare funding co-operation between the Scottish and UK Governments along side EU to fund this unique demonstration project.
This project opened the door to further offshore wind developments adopting jacket foundation technologies to deliver projects in much deeper water than the existing monopile technologies of the day. It single-handedly extended the reach of offshore wind into deeper waters further from shore.
Our first commercial project, Robin Rigg in April 2010 was the antithesis of Beatrice as it was in possibly the shallowest water available in Scotland in the Solway Firth. This UK Round 3 project covered depths ranging from 4-14m due to a high tidal range in the Solway area. It originally consisted of two projects, East and West, with 180MW in total with this later falling to the present 174MW due to the removal of two turbines due to foundation issues.