Fault in SSEN’s network leads to Viking going offline

31 July 2026 09:40

A sign at the entrance of Viking Energy Wind Farm stands in front of a hill with a wind turbine in the background under a cloudy sky.

The Viking Energy wind farm has been operational since summer 2024. Photo: Shetland News

THE VIKING Energy wind farm went offline for a time on Wednesday after a fault on SSEN’s transmission network in the north of Scotland.

The wind farm was seen to be active again on Wednesday morning following a period of outage in July, which SSEN said had been due to a planned outage of the HVDC link between Shetland and the Scottish mainland.

However, there was also a fault at the Kergord energy converter station – which resulted in the facility being out of action for around a week.

After turbines at the Viking wind farm were seen to begin spinning again on Wednesday morning, the site then went offline on Wednesday afternoon.

A spokesperson for SSEN Transmission said that a fault in a “section of the north of Scotland mainland transmission network” had temporarily caused the Kergord HVDC converter station to be disconnected.

“The conditions which caused the fault were swiftly resolved throughout the day, and the Shetland HVDC link returned to full service Wednesday evening,” they added.

The fault was not believed to be linked to either the previous issue at the Kergord converter station, or to the planned outage of the HVDC link.

SSEN said that outage was for planned inspection and maintenance purposes earlier this month.

Frank Hay of campaign group Sustainable Shetland said last week that it was worrying to see issues with the Kergord converter station, less than two years after the Viking wind farm went live.

“Serious problems this early in the life of the converter station don’t augur well for the future reliability of the system,” Hay said.

He added that several vehicles had been seen driving up to the Upper Kergord site last Tuesday morning, and he suggested that a team from the mainland may have been brought up to Shetland to deal with the Kergord outage.

Turbine blade repairs have also been carried out in previous weeks, with one turbine at Scallafield seen to have workers accessing it via a large cherry-picker.

SSEN only said that the work was routine maintenance.