SSE reaches a milestone in wind farms

As storms battered the country, energy giant SSE today said it had over one gigawatt of onshore wind-farm capacity in operation for the first time, enough to power 800,000 homes for a year.

SSE, which operates in London as Southern Electric, said that solid progress at its wind sites in Clyde, Griffin and Gordonbush in Scotland and Slieve Kirk in Northern Ireland meant that its onshore wind capacity had increased from 40 megawatts six years ago to more than 1.15gw now.

That means onshore wind now represents just over a tenth of SSE's generation capacity.

Chief executive Ian Marchant said: "The safe and timely delivery of new assets is a key priority for SSE and passing the one gigawatt milestone for onshore wind-farm capacity is a very positive development as we start the New Year."

The company currently has 30 onshore wind farms in operation with another 48 projects in progress.