The Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (BOWL) project is one of the largest ever private investments in Scottish infrastructure. An investment of this size - £2.6bn - does not just bring benefits to the UK energy industry but to the UK economy as a whole.
Situated 13km off the coast of Caithness, Beatrice’s 84 turbines will generate up to 588MW once operational in 2019. To get Beatrice ready to feed that energy into the grid we need to harness the experience, knowledge and skills of a wide range of companies to help deliver the project.
When Beatrice reached Financial Close on 23 May this year the BOWL partners (SSE, CIP and Red Rock Power Limited) confirmed their commitment to using local, regional and UK suppliers where possible during project construction and operation. Since that announcement we have been delighted to see a number of companies confirm their involvement in Beatrice.
Siemens will be supplying, installing and commissioning Beatrice’s 84 wind turbines with the majority of the turbine blades being built at their new manufacturing facility in Hull. Our work with Siemens doesn’t end there. They have signed a contract with Global Energy Group which will see Nigg Energy Park in the Highlands as the main construction port of the project, creating up to 100 direct and indirect jobs in the area.
BiFab, a Fife-based company, have secured a £100m contract to build 26 subsea jackets for the project over the next two years. This contract has secured 200 jobs and will bring new work to all three of BiFab’s facilities including its Burntisland and Methil yards in Fife.
RJ McLeod, one of Scotland’s largest privately owned civil engineering and building contractors, has already started to carry out Beatrice’s onshore civil engineering work.
In the first couple of months since reaching Financial Close Beatrice has already started to make waves in the UK supply chain. Over the coming weeks and months we look forward to announcing more UK contracts and working with these companies to help us to build Beatrice safely and efficiently.