Headquarters Dublin, Ireland Products Electricity Founded 1997 Parent organization SSE plc | Key people Paul Dowling - CEO Website www.sserenewables.com Number of employees 380 | |
Type Subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Energy | ||
SSE Renewables is a renewable energy subsidiary of Airtricity. Airtricity was founded in 1997 in Ireland and now is a renewable energy company owned by Scottish and Southern Energy. It is an international wind farm developer and is currently building, in partnership with RWE npower renewables, the Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm which is the world's largest offshore wind farm under construction.
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History
Eirtricity was established in 1997 by Eddie O'Connor, developed generation capacity in Ireland based in counties Cavan, Donegal, Sligo and Wexford construction, though only 7 of a planned 200 turbines were actually built.
The company changed its name to Airtricity from the original Eirtricity which is derived from the word Éire, Irish for "Ireland" in 2002.
In 2007 Airtricity was named 'The No.1 Best Company to Work For in Ireland' by the Great Place To Work Institute.
The company was sold to SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy) in January 2008 for approximately €1.1b.
On 15 January 2009, Airtricity obtained consent from the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management for construction of the West Rhine (Dutch: West-Rijn) wind farm 40 kilometres off the Dutch North Sea coast. The wind farm will consist of up to 72 wind turbines with a total potential power capacity of around 260 MW.
Eddie O'Connor left Airtricity in 2008 and founded Mainstream Renewable Power.
In October 2009 SSE announced that Airtricity would be rebranded as SSE Renewables from 1 January 2010, with the Airtricity brand still in existence as an energy supplier in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Description
SSE Renewables is owned by Scottish and Southern Energy as of 15 February 2008 and now describes itself as "the renewable development division of SSE".
SSE Renewables built and operates the 72 megawatt (MW) Meentycat wind farm, currently the largest Irish wind farm, supplying 100% renewable electricity to its customers.