Whitelee Windfarm near Glasgow to be rebuilt with fewer, larger turbines
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 initially consisted of 140 turbines but has been expanded twice to the current size.
Scottish Power Renewables chief executive, Charlie Jordan, said the company was planning for when the turbines reached the end of their natural lifespan.
“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 added.
Scottish Power’s chief executive Keith Anderson said that repowering the site was “critical” for its future.
He told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast: “Whitelee is an iconic wind farm, it’s the biggest one in the UK and it’s a huge attraction.”
He said: “They will be bigger and taller, but you need to put that in context of the landscape.
“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.”
