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North Sea Knitters group stages ‘knit in’ protest at SSE’s Perth offices on the day of their 2024/5 profit announcement, over Peterhead power station plans. 

Climate activist group, the North Sea Knitters, held their fourth ‘knit in’ protest at SSE’s Perth headquarters today [Wednesday 21 May] to highlight the company’s woefully inadequate transition plans. The protest coincided with the announcement that SSE made £2.4 billion in profits in the last financial year.  

Over half of SSE’s energy generation capacity comes from burning expensive fossil fuels, which keeps people’s energy bills high – at a time when a third of households in Scotland are currently experiencing fuel poverty. Meanwhile, the company is reducing its investments in renewable energy and cutting over 300 jobs in the sector. 

The protesters cited research recently released by campaign group Beyond Fossil Fuels, which found that SSE’s targets of achieving net-zero between 2040 and 2050 fall significantly behind the International Energy Agency’s pathway of net-zero across the whole energy sector by 2035.  

SSE currently has no plans to scale back its existing gas burning power generation, and is relying on unproven carbon capture and storage technology to allow it to continue profiting from burning gas for electricity. It is currently seeking permission from the Scottish Government to build a second gas burning power station in Peterhead which has been predicted to have a three to five times bigger climate impact than SSE initially admitted in their planning application.  

Chris Aldred, one of the North Sea Knitters, said: 

“SSE should be investing more in renewable energy and stop making such outrageous profits off the back of widespread fuel poverty. We don’t need new gas power in Scotland.  SSE’s promises of carbon capture are nothing but greenwashing.” 

Freya Aitchison, Oil and Gas Activism Officer at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: 

“SSE is making huge profits, while disregarding the pathway set out by the International Energy Agency for reducing emissions.  They’ve shown they will chase profits at the expense of anything else, certainly at the expense of credible climate targets.  

“SSE’s plans to expand the Peterhead site lean heavily on fairytale technology that has never been proven at this scale – in fact it has failed repeatedly around the world. There is no reason to believe that carbon capture will work here. All it shows is the lengths SSE will go to to ensure they can keep profiting from burning gas.”