Whitelee Wind Farm, Scotland, United Kingdom

Whitelee Wind Farm, the largest onshore wind farm in Europe, was commissioned in May 2009. Located on Eaglesham Moor, 15km from Glasgow, Scotland, it has 140 turbines generating 322MW of electricity, sufficient to power 200,000 homes. It is also the first wind farm to be located close to a large population, with more than 500,000 living within a 30km radius. The total cost of constructing the wind farm was estimated at £300m.

The wind farm is owned by ScottishPower Renewables, which is a subsidiary of Iberdrola S.A, the world's largest developer of renewable energy. Iberdrola has an installed capacity of 10,447MW, with over 57,400MW in the pipeline.

ScottishPower Renewables announced two expansions at the wind farm in 2009, a few months after it was commissioned. The expansions began in November 2010. The expansion is expected to be completed by May 2012.

The expansion will increase the total number of turbines at the wind farm to 215 and the total capacity to 539MW. The wind farm will then have the capacity to provide power to 330,000 homes, more than the number of households in Glasgow (295,000 as in 2008).

The expansions will come onstream by 2012.

On 23 March 2010, the wind farm was temporarily shut down when one of its blades fell off the turbine. A safety check was performed on all the 140 turbines before resuming operations.

Whitelee Wind Farm development

The site for building the wind farm was identified in 1999. ScottishPower Renewables commenced the development activities of the wind farm in 2000. The company submitted a planning application to the Scottish Government seeking approval of the wind farm in 2002. It also submitted the Environmental Statement during the same year. The government approved the project in 2006.

Though the project received positive recommendations from the local authorities, it faced objections related to traffic control radars. These were posed by two aviation authorities: Glasgow Airport and National Air Traffic Services (NATS En Route). The MetOffice also objected to the project as its Corse Hill weather radar would be affected. ScottishPower overcame these objections by constructing another radar for aviation purposes through the data fusion technique.

The data fusion technique enabled the data from new radar to merge with the existing radar, giving air traffic controllers a full picture of the air space without the turbine plots.

Scottish Power Renewables announced its first extension at the wind farm by 36 turbines in May 2009. On 16 December 2009, the company received another approval from the Scottish Government to add a further 39 turbines to the existing wind farm.

Construction of both the extensions is currently being executed. The extensions will result in a total of 215 turbines (140+36+39) and a new installed capacity of 539MW.

The first extension of 36 turbines will increase the output by 130MW, increasing the current capacity of 322MW (140 turbines) to 452MW.

The second phase of expansion will add 39 turbines that will increase the capacity by 141MW to 539MW. The second extension will be located to the south west of the existing wind farm, north of Irvine valley and north east of Kilmarnock.

The wind farm will be spread over 80km2 with 215 turbines after the two expansions. It is currently spread over 55km2 Upon completion it is expected to be one of the largest onshore wind power projects in Europe.

Construction

ScottishPower started the construction of the wind farm, following its approval by the government, in 2006. A ground-breaking ceremony occurred for the project on 9 October 2006. The company signed infrastructure and turbine contracts for the wind farm three days later on 12 October 2006.

A substation and a control room were constructed at the site to monitor the wind farm. The substation construction was complete in April 2007. A 90km road was laid to transport the turbines, which has now become a popular cycling, walking and horse riding path. The road construction was completed in June 2007 and the grid transformers were delivered to the site. The first turbine of the wind farm was erected in November 2007.

The first output from the wind farm came in January 2008. The entire project was completed in 2009 and was officially switched on in May 2009. The wind farm achieved full output three months later in July 2009. A £2m state-of-the-art visitor's site was also constructed around the same time to encourage people to visit the wind farm.

Whitelee Wind Farm details

The initial 140 turbines at the Whitelee wind farm are spread over 57km2. Supplied by Siemens, each turbine generates 2.3MW and measures 300ft to the tip of the blade. Each blade is 150ft in length.

The turbine makes 17 revolutions per minute turning at 360 degrees tearing the wind at a speed of 150mph. A foundation of over 30ft deep was dug into the peat to erect the turbines. These turbines were erected in an east to west direction to form a grid with 920km of cabling. The three transformers at the grid weigh 120t each.

Contractors

Balfour Beatty, an infrastructure services firm, undertook the construction of the substation and control room at the site. The firm was also in charge of the design, supply and installation of electrical and control systems including the switchgear and cabling necessary for transporting power to the grid.

The main contract for the expansion was awarded to a joint venture between John Sisk and Son and Roadbridge in November 2010.

Balfour Beatty was awarded another contract in March 2011 for works related to the wind farm expansion. The contract involves all electrical infrastructure works and the supply of switchgear and 33kV cabling.

Siemens Power Generation UK was contracted to supply 140 turbines for the original project. The contract was worth £235m and was the biggest turbine order for Siemens at that time.

A €200m contract has been awarded to Alstom for the supply of 250 turbines. Nearly 75 turbines will be used for the Whitelee Wind Project including 69 ECO-100 and six ECO-74 wind turbines with a generating capacity of 3MW and 1.67MW respectively. The turbines will be delivered by July 2011.

Scotland power market

Scotland has an installed power of 36.5GW (exceeding its home demand of 10.5GW), which is 25% of Europe's wind energy source. The installed capacity of wind farms in Scotland in January 2006 was 0.56GW, about 30% of the operating renewable capacity of 1.9GW. In 2009, this increased to 1.8GW with 70 onshore wind farms. There has been a growing emphasis by the Government of Scotland on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions including the world-leading emission reducing targets of 42% and 80% by 2020 and 2050 respectively. The Scottish Government has also set a target of generating 31% of electricity through renewable sources in 2011 and 50% by 2020, most of it coming from wind power.

In August 2009, the Scottish Government sanctioned 3GW of onshore wind energy projects with a further 3GW due for permission. Due to the strong legislation-led power market, Scotland has become a favourable place of investment for energy businesses such as Skykon, REpower and Nordex.