Power is flowing from the Shetland Islands to the UK mainland for the first time as Britain’s most productive onshore windfarm comes on stream.
SSE said the 103-turbine project, known as Viking, could generate 443 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power almost 500,000 homes.
Shetland is the largest part of England, meaning that it will be rare for the turbines to stop spinning.
Chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies told BBC News that a “significant acceleration” in renewable energy infrastructure is now urgently needed if the UK is to meet its climate change targets.
“We need to do more of these projects, as well as more offshore wind projects, to ensure that we can decarbonize the energy system,” he said.
But critics of windfarms – and the pylons needed to carry the electricity they generate – say the new era of mass industrialization for private profit will destroy swathes of the English countryside.
SSE has built a 160-mile undersea cable to bring power from Viking to Noss Head, near Wick, on the Scottish mainland.
The company says it has invested more than £1bn in windfarm and cable projects, and plans to plow another £20bn into renewable energy by the end of the decade.
Phillips-Davies said it would be “the biggest construction we’ve seen since World War II.”
“Shetland’s got great wind resources. This is the biggest wind farm we can build here. There will be more projects to come,” he said.
It is ‘essential’ to end fossil fuel dependence
British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said Viking was “an important part” of reducing Britain’s dependence on “volatile fossil fuel markets, promoting energy independence and protecting consumers.”
The Labor Government has set a target for 100% of England’s electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2030, eliminating gas-fired power stations.
Ministers have pledged to speed up the development of wind, hydrogen and carbon capture projects by investing £8.3bn over five years in a public power company called Great British Energy.
Conservatives have previously said that GB Energy is a “financial black hole” which will funnel taxpayers’ money to reduce risks for multi-million pound energy companies.
Mr Miliband also claimed that the Viking project would ensure “hundreds of thousands of homes in the Shetlands and across the country would benefit from low-cost, original energy,” but that was controversial in the archipelago.
Moraig Lyall, chairman of Shetland Islands Council’s environment and transport committee, said annual household bills on the island were often more than double the UK average of £1,700 and showed no signs of falling due to the Viking host.
“People now look out their windows, they see all these turbines that generate a lot of energy, but they don’t benefit here.
“They are still sitting in their homes to decide, I can put on the heating, and let people be justifiably angry about that,” she said, adding that the islanders were also worried about the Viking impact on the landscape; constructed peat bog environment; and tourism.
There are also concerns on the mainland, where some communities have objected to plans by SSE and others to build huge pylons to deliver electricity from new renewable projects to towns and cities across Scotland, England and Wales.
“Someone needs to tread the line between net zero ideology and rampant commercial opportunism,” said Kate Matthews of Save Our Mearns, a campaign group against SSE’s plans to install 37-44 miles (60-70km) of new pylons from Kintore in Aberdeenshire to Tealing in Angus.
“Angus and Aberdeenshire are looking at 10 to 20 years of industrialization, so constant buildings, constant applications, thousands of hectares of battery energy storage, thousands of hectares of hydrogen solar turbine plants,” said Ms Matthews.
“We will pay the price for generations. It will be unrecognizable,” he added.
Ms Matthews said “the rest of the UK doesn’t know what’s coming,” with plans for new pylons in Essex, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, the Lake District, parts of Wales, and elsewhere.
Ministers have also promised to reform planning laws to make it easier and faster for large projects to get consent.
SSE’s Mr Phillips-Davies said it was significant, pointing out that it took Viking 20 years from the start to become blades, 16 years on paper.
He called on the UK and Scottish governments to speed up and speed up the planning process so that projects could be approved or refused within 12 months.
He pointed out that Berwick Bank in the outer Firth of Forth, which will be the world’s largest offshore windfarm, has been waiting for permission from the Scottish government for almost two years.
It’s not just renewable energy companies that are worried about the pace of the transition from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy.
In Aberdeen, the home of Britain’s oil and gas industry, there are concerns that the British government is putting jobs at risk.
“It’s already a sector that pays three times as much tax as the wider economy,” said David Whitehouse of the industry body, Offshore Energies UK, formerly Oil & Gas UK.
Producers now pay a tax rate of 78%, including a windfall tax brought in after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in oil prices.
Mr Whitehouse said he was also concerned about scrapping tax breaks for investment.
He warned of a potential “closure of investment” which he said could have consequences for thousands of jobs and implications for “the supply chain needed to deliver a successful home energy transition”.
“We are starting to see resources, major equipment, drilling rigs and personnel leaving the basin,” agreed Steve Bowyer, general manager of North Sea oil and gas producer EnQuest.
“We really want to grow in the UK, but we need the right fiscal conditions to drive that growth,” he said.
Mr Bowyer said his company would be “watching closely” what Chancellor Rachel Reeves does in the autumn budget and how she engages with the industry “over the next six to 12 months” as it considers future investment.
“There is a risk of causing irreparable damage to UK industry and the economy if we do not see the right engagement, collaboration and action to put in place an appropriate fiscal regime,” he said.
The government insists it will protect North Sea jobs for decades to come and also ensure a smooth transition to renewable energy.
But it is clear that ministers are facing pressure and scrutiny from the oil industry on the one hand and the renewable sector on the other.
Being green is not without its challenges.