SSE Generation Ltd., the wholly owned generation business of SSE plc, has signed a comprehensive and flexible service agreement with GE covering its fleet of 127 GE wind turbines in operation across the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The new agreement will provide a wide range of technical support services for SSE’s GE wind turbines, allowing SSE the flexibility to customize technical support services on a site-by-site basis. Service scope will be split between GE and SSE’s own service teams depending upon the respective team’s regional capability.
“With the expansion of the onshore wind generation fleet, we needed new ideas and strategies to manage our fleet while continuing to manage safety, long-term integrity and costs,” said Jeremy Williamson, onshore wind generation manager of SSE Generation. “GE’s solution provides us with an unprecedented level of service flexibility for our fleet of installed GE wind turbines.”
All of the wind turbines covered under the new service agreement are GE 1.5-megawatt units, the most widely deployed wind turbines in the global wind industry with more than 14,000 installed worldwide. The agreement includes GE’s highly-specialized technology for remote monitoring, troubleshooting and support as well as routine maintenance. In addition, SSE will benefit from GE’s wind turbine upgrades, parts and access to state-of-the-art training from GE’s Energy Learning Center.
“Our agreement with SSE Generation demonstrates our ability to allow our customers to customize their preferred level of support, putting us at the forefront of the wind industry,” said Diarmaid Mulholland, wind services general manager—renewable energy for GE Power & Water. “We believe this approach maximizes the resources and the expertise that can be applied toward ensuring the long-term, reliable and profitable operation of our wind turbines.”
SSE owns approximately 10,700 megawatts of electricity generation capacity, making it the second largest electricity generator across the United Kingdom and Ireland. This includes 4,500 megawatts of gas and oil fired capacity, 4,000 megawatts of coal fired capacity and more than 2,200 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.