ScottishPower has come up with a solution to the long-running radar dispute
with BAA which should allow the Whitelee wind farm, the largest in Europe, to go
ahead.
The technical solution involves the building of an additional radar on the site
of the former Kincardine power station, which will allow traffic controllers to
view a seamless picture and manage flights to and from Glasgow Airport.
The new radar, which the Sunday Herald understands will cost less than £5
million should mean the end to a three-year long dispute between ScottishPower
and BAA. The row prevented the go-ahead of the 140 turbine wind farm on
Eaglesham Moor, south of Glasgow, which will produce 322MW, enough for 170,000
homes.
Final details of the radar schemes are being thrashed out between ScottishPower,
BAA and NATS, (the National Air Traffic Service) with planning approval expected
in October, allowing ScottishPower to place the order for the radar before
Christmas.
The technical solution is known as “data fusion”, with data taken from the new
radar at Kincardine being fused with that from the existing radar to give air
traffic controllers a full picture, with no blind spots.
ScottishPower looked at a number of possible locations but Kincardine was chosen
because the topography between it and Whitelee provided the best screening from
the turbines and the most effective coverage of airspace.
Alan Mortimer, head of renewables policy for ScottishPower, said: “Kincardine is
the optimum location. It ‘sees’ the airspace above Whitelee but, because of the
intervening hills, it doesn’t see the turbines.”
The fact that the former power station site already has pylons on it and is
currently owned by ScottishPower should limit any planning and other
difficulties involved in changing the use of the site to house the radar.
Mortimer said: “The Kincardine site is an already developed location. It was a
power station which still has pylons and buildings on site and that means that
the visual impact of the radar is going to be minimal.”
BAA, NATS and a radar manufacturer have all validated the site as meeting the
tech nical requirements.
It now awaits Scottish Executive approval for the plan to go ahead.
If the final permission is given, it would mean the radar being built next year
with the installation starting in late 2006, early 2007. The radar would be
expected to be fully operational in the autumn of 2007, in good time to allow
the first turbine at Whitelee to be be operational in January 2008.
Mortimer said: “The issue has been live for about three years. We are absolutely
pleased that we are now on a way to it being solved.”
Mortimer said that the Whitelee wind farm would mean that the renewable target
for Scotland for 2010 – that of generating 18% of electricity from renewable
sources – would be able to be met.
The news follows last week’s announcement from ScottishPower chief executive Ian
Russell that the company’s priority over the next few years will be to develop
more wind farms. He said that the company would spend £750m expanding its wind
division.
But Britain is trailing behind countries such as Spain, the US, Germany and
India, in terms of its attractiveness as a market for developing renewable
energy, according to a new survey from Ernst & Young.
The study found that investment in the UK’s renewable energy market was being
restrained in the near term by the slower pace of development of onshore wind
farms.
The Near-Term Onshore Wind Index, which looks at market attractiveness over a
two-year period, showed that Spain, the US, Germany and India were forecast to
install in excess of 1GW to December 2006, compared to the 500 to 750MW
anticipated in the UK.
Jonathan Johns, head of renewable energy at Ernst & Young, said: “The Near-Term
Index reveals a clear gap between the ‘promise and reality’ in the UK’s
renewable energy market.
“In the next two years the UK needs to deliver MW’s both on the ground and in
the sea. As the US flexes its market power, manufacturers’ attention and time is
being diverted at a time when capacity is constrained – further impetus is
therefore vital for the UK market.”