Agreement for sale of Beatrice transmission assets

Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm Limited, a joint venture owned by SSE Renewables (40%), Red Rock Power Limited (25%), The Renewables Infrastructure Group (17.5%) and Equitix (17.5%), has announced that it has signed an agreement to sell the Offshore Transmission Assets (OFTO) of the 588MW Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm, Scotland’s largest offshore generation asset, to Transmission Capital Partners, a consortium comprising International Public Partnerships Limited, Amber Infrastructure Group and Transmission Investment.

The sale agreement follows the selection in December 2019 by Ofgem of Transmission Capital Partners as the preferred bidder for the offshore transmission licence for the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm as part of a competitive Offshore Transmission Tender process.

The sale relates to the transmission cable connection to the offshore wind farm located in Scotland’s Outer Moray Firth, approximately 13.5km off the Caithness coastline in Scotland. Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm comprises 84 Siemens Gamesa 7MW wind turbine generators connected to two offshore substation platforms located within the boundaries of the wind farm.

The transmission assets include two Offshore Transformer Modules, the onshore substation at Blackhillock and export cables, and hold an asset value of £437.9 million. The sale takes place in accordance with the OFTO regime as part of Ofgem’s Tender Round 6.

Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm Limited will provide logistics and reactive services support to Transmission Capital Partners under an Operations and Maintenance (O&M) agreement.

Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm became fully operational in June 2019 following seven years of development and three years of construction, and was officially opened two years ago this week by HRH The Prince Charles, The Duke of Rothesay. Beatrice is operated and maintained from its base at Wick Harbour on the north east coast of Scotland. Its 84 wind turbines are capable of providing enough wind powered electricity for up to 450,000 homes.