Wild Land News no 71, Spring/Summer 2008

COMMENT - Windfarm Expansion Article

We are now perhaps seeing the second phase of the spread of windfarms, especially in the Highlands. The first phase has been characterised by individual windfarms gaining permission in specific locations - these possibly not the first choice of the generating companies.

The current, second phase is the establishment of further windfarms in the vicinity of these initial farms, and expansion of the original ones. This phase is also seeing an increase in the height of turbines as well as the expansion in number.

The are several examples that come to mind: just north and east of the Cairngorms National Park is the area for several proposed and planned farms round Dava Moor and Lochindorb, described as a Ring of Steel, around the top of the Park, not a huge distance from the windfarm at Farr in the Monadhliaths. The campaign group 'Save our Dava' has more information.

In the Lammermuir Hills, south-east of the Lothians, there are the existing farms at Crystal Rig Phase 1, Black Hill and Dun Law. Approved are Crystal Rig 2, Dun Law 2, Aikengall, Toddleburn and Longpark. Applied for is Crystal Rig 2a and Fallago Rig.

It is clear from this pattern that once one windfarm is approved in a locality it is much harder to resist other farms and the expansion of the original one.

Again and again the lack of a national strategy means our wild land is being eroded continually bit by bit, application by application. The quantity of proposals is daunting…the details to analyse, huge. By and large the public is unaware of what has been approved already, yet it is public money that is being thrown at these projects.

The Government's Renewables Obligation provides financial incentives to suppliers, but in 2005 the National Audit Office calculated that "Pursuit of the target will result in costs for the consumer and taxpayer exceeding £1 billion a year by the end of the decade, which will increase the price of electricity by around 5 per cent." They also noted that "some projects using the cheapest technologies (onshore wind and landfill gas) at the best sites receive more support from the Renewables Obligation than necessary to see them developed."

So where has the surplus money been going? Into the pockets of landowners for a start. The going rate for rent is now understood to be over £10,000 per turbine per annum. Our society has almost become inured to the idea of landowners making easy profits out of monopoly rights to natural resources and out of the investment of public money, but windfarms add another dimension to this. It is outrageous that private fortunes can be made out of the way the wind blows over the hills, driven by weather systems originating thousands of miles away over which no-one has control, especially when it is all so obviously happening at the expense of the taxpayer.