ScottishPower Renewables was today granted final planning consent for one of Scotland’s largest on-shore windfarm developments - the 180MW Arecleoch project near Barrhill, South Ayrshire.
The windfarm, which will cost approximately £200 million, will consist of up to 60 turbines, producing enough clean green energy to power approximately 85,000 homes. This means that ScottishPower Renewables now has over 1200MW of renewable energy either in operation, construction or consented, and cements their position as the UK’s leading developer of onshore windfarms.
The design and development work for Arecleoch has been underway for several years involving detailed discussions with various statutory bodies to ensure that environmental impacts were appropriately addressed. Construction will start on site during Autumn this year and the whole project is expected to take approximately two years to complete.
Keith Anderson, Director, ScottishPower Renewables said:
“This announcement is hugely important because, including Arecleoch windfarm, ScottishPower Renewables now has over 1200MW of wind energy either in operation, construction or consented - meaning our confirmed capacity is now significantly bigger than all our competitors.
"Arecleoch is our fourth major windfarm in Scotland and another excellent example of our successful strategy of site selection – identifying projects in appropriate landscapes , with good access to grid and road infrastructure and most importantly outstanding wind resources.
“Our strategy of concentrating on these factors has led to the approval of four major projects, including Whitelee, Europe’s largest windfarm. These projects will play a hugely significant role in Scotland's efforts to combat climate change including the Scottish Government’s target of producing 50 percent of all of Scotland’s energy from renewable resources by 2020.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
• The Arecleoch project is part of the €1.2 billion investment programme outlined by Iberdrola for developing renewable energy projects in the UK until 2010.
• The integration of Iberdrola and ScottishPower, successfully completed on April 23 2007, has created a new organisation, which is one of the largest electricity groups in Europe with an enterprise value of around €80 billion, a presence in more than 30 countries and 22 million points of supply. The new group is also the world’s number one renewable energy operator with 7,000 MW of installed capacity and a pipeline of more than 40,000 MW.