The story
The company was founded as Eirtricity (derived from the word Éire, Irish for "Ireland") in 1997 by Eddie O'Connor, developed generation capacity in Ireland based in counties Cavan, Donegal, Sligo and Wexford construction, though only 7 of a planned 200 turbines were actually built. The company changed its name to Airtricity in 2002. It rebranded as SSE Airtricity in February 2014.
In 2007 Airtricity was named 'The No.1 Best Company to Work For in Ireland' by the Great Place To Work Institute.
The company sold its North American assets in October 2007 to the German Group E.ON for approximately $1.4bn.
The company was sold to SSE plc in January 2008 for approximately €1.1b.
On 15 January 2009, Airtricity obtained consent from the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management for construction of the West Rhine (Dutch: West-Rijn) wind farm 40 kilometres off the Dutch North Sea coast. The wind farm will consist of up to 72 wind turbines with a total potential power capacity of around 260 MW.
Eddie O'Connor left Airtricity in 2008 and founded Mainstream Renewable Power.
In October 2009 SSE announced that the renewable energy division of Airtricity would be rebranded as SSE Renewables from 1 January 2010.
In May 2010 Airtricity announced that it would be entering the domestic gas market in the Republic of Ireland. Airtricity came under fire in 2010 for an alleged lack of compassion in disconnecting customers with a good bill-paying record.
From Wikipedia’s article on SSE Airtricity, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4