18 Mar 2011
The Scottish government has abandoned plans for two offshore wind farms identified by the Crown Estate as part of its Scottish Territorial Waters leasing round.
E.ON's 300MW project in the Solway Firth and DONG Energy's 280MW Wigtown Bay proposals were both deemed unsuitable by the government's new offshore wind plan, published today.
Both were part of the 10 areas originally earmarked for wind power and awarded to developers in February 2009 by the Crown Estate. However, a Strategic Environmental Assessment undertaken by the Scottish Government found that both proposals were considered to have problems with public acceptability, environmental and visual impact.
"In addition, socio-economic assessment suggests that there is little or no potential for regional economic benefit, and indeed that there is a possibility of adverse economic impacts," the report adds.
"As a result, the Scottish ministers have decided that the Solway Firth and Wigtown Bay sites are unsuitable for the development of offshore wind and should not be progressed as part of this Sectoral Marine Plan."
An E.ON spokeswoman told BusinessGreen that the company was baffled by the move.
"The first we heard was when it came out today," she said. "We're waiting to speak to the Scottish government to see if we can progress the project. We're obviously disappointed. We think it's a good site, but we won't know the next steps until we speak to the Scottish government."
She added that the company was hoping to discuss the matter with the Scottish government late on Friday afternoon.
A spokesman for DONG Energy said: "DONG Energy will take the conclusions of the SEA and Plan for Offshore Wind development in Scottish Territorial Waters into consideration for Wigtown Bay and when looking at any other future opportunities in Scottish Territorial Waters."
The Scottish government denied the projects had been totally discounted and insisted that developers were still free to submit licence applications.
"This is neither the starting pistol nor the full stop, merely a snapshot of where we are now," a spokewoman told BusinessGreen.
"The decision to pursue the development of sites is still a commercial option. Developers can still submit them for licensing, but today's publication should give an indication of how likely it is [to be approved]," she added. "But it's possible they could be developed in 10 years' time, for example."
As part of the Blue Seas – Green Energy plan, ministers gave the green light to six of the 10 original projects, which it said could be producing 5GW of electricity by 2020, and identified a further 25 areas for further development between 2020 and 2030.
Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) had already pulled two of its projects out of the running – the Kintyre project was cancelled over insufficient wind and Bell Rock was withdrawn last year over possible radar impacts.
Fred Olsen also abandoned its 450MW Forth Array wind farm project in November to concentrate on growing its onshore portfolio.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK? Add your comment
The reality of Wind Power
Wind power because of the extremely unpredictability of wind is useless because for any practical energy supply you need to know that it will be available when it is required. To make matters worse because of this fundamental flaw of unreliability in wind power generation there has to be commensurate back up to provide the energy from rapid fire up power stations which can only be gas. In fact in Stewart Brand's book' The Whole Earth Discipline' he gives the production figures for wind in the USA the out of 94GW installed capacity the turbines only actually produce because of intermittency only 20% of this theoretical peak capability (page 101) a hard reality, which is now being backed up by field trial data in the UK.
Posted by sunpower, 23 Mar 2011
Such Honesty
It was good of Stuart to pick a title that described his post so accurately!
Posted by Paul, 21 Mar 2011
Unfounded Rhetoric
Mark should not assume that because one finds wind turbines unacceptable, that all the other developments he cites, are. Everything has a cost and a benefit. The problem with wind turbines is that they are just about the least 'green' of any form of renewable energy. One of the reasons for that is that they have to have up to 90% (says EON-Netz in Germany) or 80% (says Spain's Iberdrola) back up from fossil fuel power stations. So they actually save very little carbon, and they are unreliable. Reliability is measured by power factor, and even the UK government records wind energy as being as poor as 18%. As a comparison biomass rates 86%. However what is incontrovertible, and is why the energy companies like wind turbines so much, is that they offer the fastest return on capital of any form of renewable energy.
Posted by Stuart, 20 Mar 2011
Typical
So, you don't save a problem with a 20 meter wide motorway dividing the land into islands, you don't mind disgusting coal stations and scary nuclear power plants? You don't mind the massive areas of the planet destroyed by mining (which you never see anyway, so I guess that does not bother you). You don't mind the power masts across the country and you don't mind the daily vapour trails on the blue sky. You don't mind the lack of forests due to farming, the talk of few fish in the sea and your stupid Range Rover. But you do mind a series of windmills making you clean energy?
Posted by Mark, 19 Mar 2011