Wild Land News no 54, Winter 2001/2002

COMMENT: Scotland as Europe's renewable energy capital? Article

The renewable energy debate intensified towards the end of 2001. A study for the Scottish Executive by a Glasgow-based consultancy quantified Scotland's enormous generating potential, prompting commentators to dub Scotland the renewable energy capital of Europe. The study examined a range of sources: wind power, both onshore and offshore; wave and tidal power (the latter involving underwater turbines); and biomass and small hydro schemes. The total capacity was estimated at a massive 58.9 gigawatts, almost 10 times Scotland's peak demand on the coldest of days, and almost ¾ that of the entire UK.

All this, of course, is a long way off, with many of the technologies in their infancy. But onshore wind energy is becoming well established in Scotland, and a proposal has been made for the world's largest wind-farm, at 600 megawatts (MW) on the Isle of Lewis. Electricity would be exported south by means of an underwater connector running from the Outer Hebrides to south-west England, and coming ashore at several points on its way.

As primarily a landscape organisation, SWLG has no specific remit on energy policy. However, as a group with a general interest in the environment, we support clean energy generation in principle, but with the crucial reservation that the installations must avoid damage to our wild landscape heritage. In the early days of the group we had to fight off proposals for small run-of-river hydro schemes in the Torridon area, and more recently we have opposed certain wind-farm schemes which we considered inappropriately sited.

The debate has now entered the public arena in a big way. A series of wind-farm proposals last autumn, some situated close to urban areas, has prompted some acrimonious correspondence in the Scottish press, with claims and counter-claims about the desirability of wind energy.

For us in SWLG, it is encouraging that there has been a detectable trend towards the choice of brownfield sites for some of these developments. One recent proposal is for a 120MW wind-farm on a former opencast mining site on Black Law in Lanarkshire, and another for a 29MW scheme on the site of a former explosives factory on the Ayrshire coast. This is exactly the kind of location we have been urging, ever since our 1996 AGM debate on wind energy (see WLN 40). There surely must be plenty of scope for such developments before any more turbines need to be built amidst our more valued landscapes.

Furthermore, the 11.5 gigawatt potential of onshore wind power indicated in the Scottish Executive study specifically excludes land protected for its scenic beauty and wildlife and natural habitats.

Alongside these large-capacity schemes, small-scale hydro schemes, such as the 3.55MW one proposed for Shieldaig and Slattadale just north of Torridon, look decidedly puny (see WLN 52). Yet that scheme, however carefully designed, would intrude into a spectacular mountain area just about as close to pristine wilderness as can be found in Britain. It would involve alterations to the natural hydrology and exaggerated fluctuations in loch levels which are inconsistent with the largely unspoilt character of the area.

Diversification of energy generation appears to be the main reason for the Government continuing to promote small-scale hydro schemes, but Scotland has already invested heavily in hydro power with the post-war dam-building programme which created large-scale schemes in many of the glens. It clearly makes sense to have a range of options in the event of failure of one particular source, but in the light of the Executive's energy study it is increasingly hard to see the relevance of small-scale schemes such as the one proposed for Shieldaig/Slattadale. At 3.55MW, this would be the Scotland's largest hydro scheme since the 1960s, yet its output would be tiny compared with the massive capacity envisaged for some of the other renewable schemes currently being proposed. In the event of a large anti-cyclone over Scotland rendering most of the wind turbines inoperative, the mind boggles at the number of 3.55MW hydro schemes we should need to make up the deficit.

In the Executive's energy study, small-scale hydro had by far the lowest potential, with only 0.3 gigawatts of the total 58.9 gigawatts capacity. Is it really worthwhile trying to squeeze a few more megawatts from hydro power in this way? Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on some of the newly emerging technologies which offer so much more potential?