It's time to say no to more onshore wind farms in Scotland

IT’S time to call a halt to further onshore wind farm development in Scotland, other than small community-owned ones.

Applications for sites are fuelling a landgrab, enriching speculators at huge cost to the public purse and are desecrating the natural environment in many parts of our land.

Scotland already produces more energy than it requires and many turbines will simply stand with the blades not turning due to lack of grid capacity, all the while perversely being paid more than when operating, due to constraint payments and the absurdity of UK electricity system.

I’m a huge supporter of renewable energy. It’s a second great natural bounty with which our country has been blessed. Onshore wind has been part of that and I was fully in favour of it over many years.

However, the dynamics of wind energy have changed with the development of offshore floating and fixed turbines.

Now they’ve arrived, the opportunity they offer is far greater for Scotland, and the power they provide negates any need to continue with onshore, other than smaller community-owned developments for local need.

The power which offshore wind farms will provide dwarfs what can be provided onshore, even if you were to blanket every hill in Scotland. Second-generation floating offshore turbines will have a massive 300-metre blade span – that is just short of the Eiffel Tower’s 330m height.

Berwick Bank, which will be fixed rather than floating according to developer SSEN’s website, will provide energy for six million homes. That’s far more houses than we have in Scotland, and why much of the field will see energy transmitted directly south by subsea cable.

But it alone, never mind the others both operating and still to be developed, show there is no need for further onshore capacity.

Offshore is also where opportunities for technology development and jobs lie. Denmark has largely cornered the market for onshore turbines. Playing catch-up will be hard and the jobs in any event would be limited.

However, offshore, and especially floating offshore, is newer and with the latter Scotland is leading the way. 

It’s there that a niche can be developed and where manufacturing – not just supply chain – work can follow. And not just for sites around Scotland’s coast but globally.

Meanwhile, speculators are seeking to buy up fields and forests for onshore wind farm development. It’s pushing up land prices and harming the interests of those interested in actually working the land, not simply siting turbines there.

It's also causing significant blight to many communities across Scotland. The Highlands, especially in the glens around Loch Ness, and the south-west, including South Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway, are already swamped, with the thought of more wind farms causing alarm to communities.

Other parts of Scotland are also seeing applications for onshore wind farms not because there is local need or even local support, but because there is the opportunity to make a fast buck.

It’s reminiscent of what happened decades ago when tax breaks encouraged the wealthy to invest in tree planting, even in the most inappropriate areas such as the Flow Country or often with the least suitable trees for the environment.

Constraint payments are costing us all a fortune. They are there to ensure there’s no overload on the grid – energy producers are paid to turn their machinery off.

Last year they amounted to £1.7 billion with £1.2bn coming from Scotland alone. That’s money that could have been invested in developing the grid, promoting new technology or even just reducing bills.

Instead, it’s gone into the pockets of businesses which are paid more not to turn their turbines than they are to produce energy for consumption.

Proposed further developments will significantly exceed increased grid capacity. If you think it’s bad now with turbines on the hills and the customers’ pockets being picked for constraint payments to corporates, believe me it’s going to get worse.

Neso, the National Electricity Supply Operator, reckons that by 2030 Scotland will be providing more than 40% of Britain’s onshore wind production. That’s way more than our Barnett share and even taking topography and climate into account it’s an abuse. When many of the turbines won’t even be turning it’s also utterly ridiculous.

Scotland is being used as a resource to provide energy for the market south of the Border and at the same time make a fast buck for many corporate fat cats.

Our country and our communities have rights too. It’s time that our natural environment was protected, our energy costs not increased by a crazy system, and for investment to go where the future and opportunities really lie for Scottish renewable energy.

[This article was first published in The National on 04.11.25]