Estates Gazette

30/08/08

Despite opposition towards huge on shore wind farms, developers are keen to take part in Scotland’s “wind gold rush”. By David Quinn

Imagine a giant wind farm sweeping across Greater London. From Epsom to Ilford, whooshing through Westminster on their way, 181 giant wind turbines – each slightly taller than the London Eye – would make a startling impact.

It sounds outlandish but, until April, when the Scottish government intervened to block it, a wind farm on precisely this scale was planned for the Isle of Lewis.

Despite its decision, the Scottish government is keen for renewable energy projects to provide a backbone for the Highlands and Islands economy during the next 40 years. Some forecast a “wind gold rush” into the region, as the government strives to meet Scotland’s 50% renewable energy target by 2020.

The problem for prospectors, such as AMEC and British Energy, the joint venture partners behind developer Lewis Wind Power, and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar – the Western Isles council, which backed the scheme – is that few local people appear to share their enthusiasm towards onshore wind farms on such a scale.

The Lewis Wind Farm faced more than 10,200 objections from the public. A BBC-commissioned Mori poll in 2005 put local opposition at 55%, while less scientific ballots suggested up to 90% of locals were against it.

Action groups such as Mòinteach gun Mhuileann – Moorland without Turbines – are concerned about what they see as a lack of consultation, the effect on Lewis’s £40m pa tourism industry, damage to special protection areas and the exploitation of a natural resource for private profit.

Proposals for Lewis Wind Power’s 650-megawatt project, which would have been among the largest onshore wind farms in the world, eventually came unstuck because of their incompatibility with European law relating to birds and natural habitats.

Yet, despite barriers to development, other companies are pursuing similar schemes. Scottish & Southern Energy has submitted plans for a 57-turbine scheme at Pairc on Lewis, while Beinn Mhor Power, a venture formed by estate owner Nicholas Oppenheim, is awaiting the outcome of a Scottish government report into plans for a separate 53-turbine scheme nearby, having won permission for a smaller 13-turbine project last month.

Elsewhere, SSE wants to develop the Viking wind farm, an onshore, 600-megawatt, 160-turbine scheme on Shetland, with an application to the Scottish government expected later this year.

Lewis Wind Power, like other developers, sought to link its scheme with the stimulation of the local economy through job creation. It forecast 470 construction jobs during the four-year building programme, 71 full-time operational jobs and a further 233 separate full-time jobs during the scheme’s 20-year lifetime.

In addition, it claimed that the scheme would have contributed 6% of the UK’s and 36% of the Scottish government’s 2010 renewable energy targets, avoiding 1.7m tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Angus McNicol, head of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors rural faculty board in Scotland and an estate manager on the Cawdor Estate, prefers not to comment on the Lewis Wind Power scheme specifically, but believes that the economic and sustainability arguments stack up in favour of such large-scale renewable energy projects.

“The Highlands is a relatively sparsely populated area, and any jobs coming into this area have to be welcomed,” he says. “There are arguments that not a huge amount of locally based employment is generated by this type of development. But they create income in the area through rental streams and community benefit funds.”

Indeed, Lewis Wind Power laid out a financial structure that would have seen £1.7m pa paid to local crofters, a further £1.7m pa in rent and £1.85m pa in community payments.

In terms of sustainability, McNicol believes there needs to be a “large number” of renewable energy schemes built urgently if government targets are to be met.

Yet, despite the arguments in favour, opposition to the Lewis Wind Farm remained vociferous throughout the six-year planning process.

Dr Joseph Murphy, from the University of Leeds, is a specialist in environmental politics and is writing a book about Gaelic culture. He believes that there are good reasons for this. He says the region has a “long history of protest” linked with the crofters’ land struggle of the 19th century. In the 1990s, there were widespread objections over French firm Lafarge’s proposals for a 10m-tonne, 1,500-acre “super-quarry” on Harris – which were eventually turned down in 2004 after a 13-year battle.

“There is a serious risk of a wind ‘gold rush’ in the Highlands and Islands, treating local communities unjustly,” he says. “The area will be expected to provide energy for the Central Belt and England. Objections are likely to be dismissed as NIMBYism, even though they may, in fact, be about scale, ownership, precise location and so on.”

Murphy says a range of alternatives to large, onshore wind farms would allow the Western Isles to be a net energy exporter and help Scotland meet its CO2 targets. They include community-led wind-generation projects, micro-generation in homes, offshore wind farms, wave and tidal flow devices, carbon sequestration and a better focus from government on demand management strategies.

He believes developers of large-scale projects tend to “justify schemes based on a narrow range of criteria”, and that this needs to change. “The question those behind the bigger schemes usually fail to ask is ‘what is an appropriate form of development for this region?’” he says.

Logic suggests the scale of opposition to the Lewis Wind Power scheme could be repeated elsewhere as proposals move forward.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see conflict if future schemes are as crude as the very large one that was planned for Lewis,” says Murphy.

However, David Bell, head of planning at Jones Lang LaSalle in Scotland, which is advising SSE on its Shetland scheme, believes some communities may be more amenable to development than others.

“In Shetland, things may be different because the local community has benefited from new infrastructure funded by the oil industry, and the public sector is experienced in negotiating significant planning gain,” he says.

Bell accepts, however, that a160-turbine onshore wind farm is uncharted territory.

Lewis Wind Power is biding its time as it works out what to do next. AMEC was last month reported to be considering selling its entire wind energy business for £20m, which would end its interest on Lewis.

None the less, developers could benefit from the Scottish government’s obvious willingness to consider large-scale renewable energy projects and apparent bias in favour.

After turning down the Lewis scheme in April, energy minister Jim Mather said “the vast renewables potential needs to be exploited”. He added: “That’s why we will urgently carry out work on how to develop renewable energy in the Western Isles, in harmony with its outstanding natural heritage.”

Mather will visit Stornoway in August, and is working on a renewables strategy document for publication in the autumn.

What seems clear is that any developer sensing an opportunity for larger, long-term investment in onshore wind farms had better be geared up for a fight.

Why so big? And why here?

A natural question for observers to ask is why developers prefer ever-larger wind farms in increasingly remote – and consequently picturesque – locations.

The advantage of island locations in particular is their exposure to the wind. Higher “load factors” – the rate of energy produced by a wind farm as a percentage of its overall capacity – mean better efficiency and larger, quicker profits. A study by the Renewable Energy Foundation in 2006 observed load factors of 27.6% in southern Scotland, compared with 34.9% in Orkney and Shetland.

Another factor that has led to larger wind farms being proposed is the expense of linking them to the national grid.

David Bell, head of planning at Jones Lang LaSalle in Scotland, which is advising Scottish & Southern on the proposed Viking scheme on Shetland, says: “To get electricity to the mainland requires a sub-sea connector cable. There is clearly a high capital cost to that, meaning the scale of the wind farm has to be bigger.”

Bell accepts that large-scale, onshore wind farms attract opposition because of their effect on the landscape, but believes this can be overcome.

“If schemes are well designed and carefully sited away from the principal outlook of properties, they can go hand in hand with local communities,” he says.