Whitelee, Britain Largest Onshore Wind Farm, to Be Rebuilt With Fewer, Taller Turbines

One of Europe's biggest onshore wind farms is to be flattened and rebuilt with fewer, taller turbines, its owner has announced.

Whitelee Windfarm has been generating electricity for about 20 years on moorland near Eaglesham, south of Glasgow, and is reaching the end of its operational life. Scottish Power Renewables says the existing 215 turbines will be replaced in three phases with around 124, each about 110m (361ft) taller.

The £1.5bn "repowering" project will take a decade to complete and will nearly double the site's output from 539 megawatts to 1 gigawatt — enough to power about 650,000 homes. An application has been made to the Scottish government's energy consents unit, with the full planning application expected by the end of next year.

The first phase of Whitelee was officially opened by then first minister Alex Salmond in 2009, having been commissioned a year earlier, and was the largest onshore wind farm in Europe at the time. It began with 140 turbines and has been expanded twice since.

Scottish Power Renewables chief executive Charlie Jordan framed the project as a defensive move as much as an expansion. "At this critical moment in the push for home-grown clean, green energy, it's important we don't go in reverse and lose the clean capacity that's been hard-earned over the last two decades as it comes to the end of its operational life," he said.

Scottish Power chief executive Keith Anderson said repowering the site was "critical" for its future. "Whitelee is an iconic wind farm, it's the biggest one in the UK and it's a huge attraction," he told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast.

Asked about the visual impact of substantially taller turbines, Anderson pointed to the scale of the landscape. "They will be bigger and taller, but you need to put that in context. It's a huge open area which was covered with commercial forestry, a lot of which we've taken away. We've turned the environment back to actually more of its natural state." He added: "If we increase the size of the site and the output of the site, then we generate more renewable power for the country, which is a brilliant thing."

Whitelee was built on Eaglesham Moor and includes footpaths and tracks for walkers to wander between the turbines, as well as a visitor centre. It covers approximately 83 sq km (32 sq miles), almost half the size of neighbouring Glasgow, and has become a popular spot for dog walkers. Scottish Power said the three-phase approach means the site can remain accessible to the public throughout the rebuild.

The project is an early example of a question facing the whole first generation of large onshore wind: what happens when the turbines wear out, and whether replacing them can be done without losing capacity in the interim.

Reported from the BBC.