SSE earned nearly £10 million in constraint payments for unused wind power generated in Scotland, the vast majority from its Viking wind farm.

Over one million MWh of energy went unused after being generated by the Viking wind turbines last year, making it comfortably the worst-offending onshore development in Scotland for wasted energy.

The second-worst performer, the Dorenell wind farm in Moray, discarded just 290,062MWh by comparison – a difference of 810,676MWh.

SSE received £9,631,696 in constraint payments as a result of wasted energy and turbines being turned off at its 103-turbine Viking site in Shetland’s central mainland.

The payments are given to energy companies when they are asked to reduce their output because energy cannot be used by the National Grid.

It means that SSE has now received £19 million for energy which has gone unused at the Viking wind farm since it became operational in just August 2023.

Comparatively, the company pays out £2.2 million a year in community benefits for Shetland – a disparity which has been increasingly criticised.

£660k paid for one week

The amount of energy going unused and the level of payments SSE has received for the Viking development have been laid bare in year-long data from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF).

On 10 separate days in 2025 SSE was paid more than £100,000 for electricity which was unable to be used at the Viking wind farm.

It was paid £667,412 over the course of one single week, when 62,372MWh in energy went unused between 4 and 10 October.

Of the 3,947,783MWh of energy discarded by Scotland’s onshore wind farms in 2025, the biggest slice 27% came directly from Viking.

A total of 1,100,738MWh – or 1.1 terawatts-hour – was not used after being generated by Viking in 2025.

SSE Renewables has repeatedly said that decisions on how much energy to constrain were made by the National Energy System Operator, not it or any other individual company.