UK energy regulator Ofgem announced that Caithness-based electricity generator Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (BOWL) has agreed to make a payment of £33.14 million after admitting it breached energy market rules.

“In BOWL’s view, this was an unintentional breach and it has committed to making changes to its bid pricing policy to avoid any future breaches,” said Ofgem.

“BOWL has co-operated fully with Ofgem in its enquiries to resolve the issue quickly and fairly.”

The wind farm is a joint venture partnership between SSE Renewables (40%), investor Red Rock Power Limited (25%), The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) (17.5%) and infrastructure investor Equitix (17.5%).

Beatrice, which became fully operational in 2019, was one of the largest ever private investments in Scottish infrastructure with a capital expenditure of around £2.5 billion.

​It is Scotland’s second largest operational offshore wind farm, capable of generating enough wind powered electricity for up to 450,000 homes. It is also one of the largest single sources of renewable energy generation in Scotland.

Located around 13.5km from the Caithness coastline, Beatrice has 84 Siemens Gamesa 7MW wind turbines and is operated and maintained by a team of up to 90 people from the Beatrice operations and maintenance base at Wick Harbour. 

​Ofgem said that BOWL accepted it breached one of its licence conditions “by charging excessive prices to reduce its generation output when this was required to keep the electricity grid balanced, thereby pushing up costs for consumers.”

After engaging with Ofgem, BOWL agreed to make the payment into Ofgem’s Redress Fund, which funds projects and schemes to support energy consumers, particularly those in vulnerable situations.

“The scale of the payment has been determined with reference to both the significant consumer detriment and the financial gain to the licensee that Ofgem considers the breach is likely to have resulted in …” said Ofgem.

“Whilst BOWL now accepts Ofgem’s position that its approach was not compliant with the relevant licence condition, BOWL has told Ofgem that in its view the breach was inadvertent and at the time of submitting the bid prices, it had considered that it was compliant.

“BOWL has co-operated fully with Ofgem in its enquiries to resolve the issue quickly and fairly.

“Since Ofgem’s review, BOWL has in addition to agreeing to make the redress payment also committed to making changes to its bid pricing policy to ensure a breach does not happen again.”