Developer CWL is planning a 560MW project that would become the UK’s largest onshore wind farm.
The Scoop Hill Community Wind Farm will use up to 80 turbines rated as powerful as 7MW at a site in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, according to a scoping report submitted to planning authorities.
At that scale it would outstrip Iberdrola’s 539MW Whitelee wind farm, also in Scotland, as Britain’s largest.
PV and storage could also be included as part of the project, said CWL, which is planning a community engagement programme to present the Scoop Hill plan in detail.
With a few exceptions for island-based projects, onshore wind development in the UK is currently excluded from support under the government’s contract for difference (CfD) support mechanism – a situation the industry is campaigning hard to change.
CWL said: “To ensure renewable energy is to continue to flourish in the post–support world, providing the cheapest form of energy, acknowledgement needs to be made that wind turbines need to increase in both physical size (tip height) and generation capacity.
“Wind farms will need to be larger in terms of the number of turbines producing an increase in renewable generation to the Scottish and UK electrical infrastructure network … whilst still providing renewable energy at the lowest possible cost.”