Leaders of global energy companies – Ocean Winds (an ENGIE and EDPR joint-venture company), EDPR, and DGL – also attended the ceremony.
The 950 MW Moray East windfarm is currently the largest operating in Scotland. It was developed by Moray Offshore Windfarm East Ltd, a joint-venture involving Ocean Winds, Diamond Green Limited and CTG.
The O&M base in Fraserburgh provides the facilities for the day-to-day running of the windfarm, warehousing for spare parts and is home to the Service Operations Vessel ‘Alba’. The vessel spends two-week periods at sea with a crew which undertakes planned works on the offshore infrastructure.
The O&M base will directly employ around 100 local people in Fraserburgh.
The windfarm began generating power in June, with the last turbine being installed last month.
Mr Matheson said: “Offshore wind will play a significant role in our energy transition and last year we set out our ambition to install up to 11GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 – enough to power over eight million homes.
“The Moray East Offshore Wind Farm will take us one step closer to realising this ambition and I am delighted to officially open the Operations and Maintenance base at Fraserburgh Harbour. This base is another important step in ensuring our communities benefit from new high-valued skilled jobs and associated economic opportunities as we achieve our net zero ambitions.”
Enrique Alvarez, Project Director of Moray East, said: “The O&M base is the land-based hub for the massive offshore infrastructure of Moray East. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved with delivering the project – the communities and organisations that have supported its development, our suppliers and our staff.
“At a time when security of energy supply is front and centre of the agenda, Moray East is coming on stream with a secure supply of low cost, low carbon energy from domestic renewable resources.”