Engineers were yesterday granted permission by the Scottish Executive to build the largest onshore windfarm in Europe, after they agreed to erect a new radar tower for Glasgow airport.
ScottishPower’s new windfarm, at Whitelee, south of Glasgow, will cost £300m to build and its 140 turbines will produce enough electricity to power 200,000 homes. The new facility, the company’s second big windfarm in Scotland’s central belt, is expected to generate some 322 MW of electricity when it enters full operation in 2009.
As part of the five-year planning process, ScottishPower has worked with BAA, which operates Glasgow airport, and National Air Traffic Services to prevent the windfarm producing a fizzy image on the radar screens that monitor aircraft taking off and landing at Glasgow. The solution will be to build a new radar tower at a former ScottishPower power station at Kincardine in Fife.
ScottishPower, the largest operator of onshore windfarms in the UK, has also agreed to move the Met Office’s weather radar, which provides weather detection services across Scotland’s central belt, from Whitelee to two new locations. The windfarm will include a visitors centre, walking and cycling facilities.
Allan Wilson, deputy enterprise minister with the Scottish Executive, said the new facility marked a milestone towards Scotland meeting its renewable energy and climate change targets. The executive has pledged to generate 18% of national electricity from renewable sources by 2010 and 40% by 2020.
Is there minority opposition? Typically, a few single-issue groups that, sadly, rely more on emotion and apocrypha than science for their analysis. They’re coupled with holiday home-owners and NIMBY’s worried about their picturesque investment. Some of the best coverage of that aspect of the question comes from the West Highland Free Press, an old-fashioned weekly that’s spent decades on the side of the small farmers and native residents of the Highlands and Islands — folks who’d benefit directly from the construction and income from wind-generated electricity.
Over the 30 years I’ve been active in environmental issues, the groups consistently science-based in their efforts tend not to be distracted by or taken over by NIMBY’s. But, they’re always around. Broader, larger enviro groups have endorsed the Whitelee windfarm for the best reasons.
