A European consortium announced plans for a new wind power facility on the Shetland Islands that could have a capacity as high as 600 MW, an unforeseen size in Europe. SSE Generation Ltd., a subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Energy plc, and Viking Energy Ltd. announced the agreement. Viking Energy is the company formed to represent Shetland Islands Council's interests in large-scale wind energy development in Shetland.
SSE Generation and Viking Energy currently have separate proposals for 300 MW wind farms in the central mainland of Shetland. They expect that the proposals will be combined and lead to the creation of a plan for a single 600 MW wind farm. Combining the separate proposals would enable the two organizations to manage all of the issues surrounding the development of major wind farms, such as environmental assessment, as part of a single project.
Shetland is the windiest part of the UK which is, in turn, the windiest country in Europe. A wind farm on the Islands could be expected to have a load factor of up to 50 percent, meaning it would produce electricity at close to its maximum capacity for around half of the time. This would make it the most productive wind farm in Europe.
