The Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm now known as Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (BOWL) project, is a wind farm close to the

Beatrice oil field The Beatrice Oil Field is a small oilfield consisting of 3 platforms located 24 km off the north east coast of Scotland. It began operations in 1980 with the field finally being decommissioned in 2017. Work is ongoing to begin removing al ...

in the

Moray Firth The Moray Firth (; Scottish Gaelic: ''An Cuan Moireach'', ''Linne Mhoireibh'' or ''Caolas Mhoireibh'') is a roughly triangular inlet (or firth) of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotl ...

, part of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

13 km off the north east coast of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

History

Evaluation project

Beatrice Wind Farm Demonstrator Project was a joint venture between

Scottish and Southern Energy SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland Perth (Scottish English, locally: ; gd, Peairt ) is a city in central Scotland, on the banks of the River Tay. It is th ...

and

Talisman Energy Talisman Energy Inc. was a Canadian independent petroleum company that existed between 1993 and 2015. The company was created from the assets of BP Canada after British Petroleum divested its 57 percent stake in June 1992. It was one of Canada' ...

(UK) to build and operate an evaluation

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...

in the deep water close to the Beatrice Oil field that

is planning on decommissioning in the near future. Built in 2007, with two turbines and a total capacity of 10 MW, it was designed to examine the feasibility of building a commercial wind farm in deep water at a reasonable distance from the shore. The jacket foundation design was developed by the Norwegian company OWEC Tower AS, and fabricated in Scotland by Burntisland Fabrications. The site is 13 km from the Scottish coast and in 45 m of water. The evaluation project was proposed to last five years. All the electricity generated is fed to the nearby Beatrice Alpha oil platform.

Planned expansion

In February 2009, the partnership of

SSE Renewables SSE Renewables is a renewable energy subsidiary of SSE plc, which develops and operates onshore and offshore wind farms and hydroelectric generation in the United Kingdom and Ireland. History In October 2009, SSE announced that Airtricity woul ...

and

Repsol Repsol S.A.
El Nuevo Herald, 2012-05-31Originally an init ...

Nuevas Energias UK, was awarded exclusivity by

The Crown Estate The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...

to develop the Beatrice offshore wind farm in the Outer Moray Firth just to the north of the existing demonstrator turbines. In April 2014, the UK Energy Secretary

Ed Davey Sir Edward Jonathan Davey (born 25 December 1965) is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020. He served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2012 t ...

announced that the Beatrice Wind Farm would be one of eight projects awarded a contract for difference to set the price paid for its power for the next 15 years. On 23 May 2016 approval was given for a £2.6bn expansion of the wind farm to 84 turbines with a capacity of 588MW of electricity, enough to supply 450,000 homes. In June 2016 contracts were awarded to the Global Energy Group, in association with

Siemens Wind Power Siemens AG ( ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal ...

, for fabrication and assembly of the turbines at Nigg Energy Park in Ross Shire, and to

Wick Harbour Wick ( gd, Inbhir Ùige (IPA: �inivɪɾʲˈuːkʲə, sco, Week) is a town and royal burgh in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland. The town straddles the River Wick and extends along both sides of Wick Bay. "Wick Locality" had a population ...

for the assembly and transport process. Several other Highland towns are expected to benefit during the construction phase due to the expected influx of workers. Work began in April 2017.

Construction and grid connection

Offshore construction began in April 2017. As of 15 May 2018, 56 of the total 84 turbine and 2 OTM jackets had been installed, first power from the main phase was generated in July 2018, with full commissioning expected to follow in spring 2019. In January 2019, the wind farm was connected to the new Caithness - Moray Link. The

high voltage direct current A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system (also called a power superhighway or an electrical superhighway) uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating curre ...

link enables power generated at Beatrice and other projects to be sent to high population areas in southern Scotland. The link which runs from

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...

to Moray, which comes ashore at Portgordon in Moray, is connected to the new Beatrice/BOWL thence to Blackhillock Substation near Keith in Moray, the UK's biggest electricity substation as of January 2019. Installation and commissioning for all 84 turbines was completed on 15 May 2019.

Controversy

In October 2018 details emerged that migrant workers were being used increasingly in the construction phase. It came out that 11 Russian Workers were arrested at Aberdeen Airport in 2017 as they were working illegally on Seafarers documents. In an unexpected move, the UK Home Office granted a 6-month waiver so that the crew could continue to work. This has been extended twice until 2019.

References

External links

LORC Knowledge - Datasheet for Beatrice Wind Farm
{{Authority control Wind farms in Scotland Offshore wind farms in the North Sea 2007 establishments in Scotland