Overcoming Barriers to Consent for Europe's Biggest Windfarm
Overcoming Barriers to Consent for Europe's Biggest Windfarm
ScottishPower was granted final planning consent for Whitelee Windfarm in April 2006. With 140 turbines and a capacity of 322 MW, the £330 million project, near Glasgow, will be Europe's largest onshore windfarm generating enough green energy to power 200,000 homes roughly equivalent to the city's demand.
Bringing this large project to the construction stage presented major challenges for ScottishPower's development team. Despite gaining positive recommendations from the local authorities - East Renfrewshire, South Lanarkshire and East
Ayrshire, the company had to overcome significant objections relating to the potential effects of the windfarm on aviation and weather radar systems.
The aviation solution involves providing a new primary radar that is screened topographically from Whitelee. Following the development of a data fusion technical solution with a specialist Norwegian supplier, a site selection process identified ScottishPower’s former Kincardine Power Station in Fife as offering the required airspace coverage. Planning consent to construct the radar was granted in September 2005.
The data fusion technique enables data from the new radar at Kincardine to be merged with that from existing radar, giving air traffic controllers a full picture of the airspace, without the turbine plots.
A trial to prove the technology was conducted at Glasgow Airport - and its success resulted in the aviation objections being withdrawn.
Section 36 planning consent was announced by Scottish Ministers on 27 April 2006.
BAA Scotland said: "BAA has long-supported the development of renewable energy in Scotland and throughout the UK. We have worked closely with NATS (National Air Traffic Service) and ScottishPower and are now pleased to be able to withdraw our objection and allow this ambitious project to continue to its final stage."
NATS commented: "Safety is NATS' overriding priority and we have spent more than a year finding the right technical solution to the particular problem that windfarms represent. This is a groundbreaking solution that will allow NATS to continue to provide a safe and efficient air traffic control service at Glasgow."
When the project is completed in 2009, Whitelee will be the largest onshore windfarm in Europe. It will supply one third of Scotland's renewable energy target.
The 55 km2 site, mainly forest and open moorland, is located some 17 km from Glasgow. It is close to grid connections and is ideally positioned to serve the population centres of Scotland's central belt.
The Whitelee project will incorporate a habitat management area to improve habitat for breeding birds and restore open moorland. A state-of-the-art visitors centre, to be constructed at Whitelee is in the planning phase and a network of windfarm tracks will allow easy access for walkers and cyclists.
