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Windfarm gets £22m of extra turbines

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Published Date: 30 July 2008

EAST Lothian's Crystal Rig windfarm is to undergo a £22 million expansion, First Minister Alex Salmond has announced.

Nine extra wind turbines will be built at the site near Dunbar and the extra capacity will be enough to power more than 13,000 homes.

Mr Salmond said the development, together with others recently announced, meant it was "virtually certain" that Scotland would now meet its target of generating 31 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2011.

He announced the Crystal Rig expansion during his visit to the headquarters of wind farm operators Natural Power in Dumfries and Galloway.

He said: "Natural Power is a growing, thriving company, with more than 14,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects on its books. It is an important contributor to Scotland's renewable energy sector and I am delighted to be able to announce this further expansion of the hugely significant Crystal Rig wind farm."

Crystal Rig wind farm was granted consent by Scottish Borders Council in June 2002 and and has expanded in phases to the current 77 turbines.

The nine new turbines will have a capacity of 27 megawatts, taking the total to almost 180 megawatts.

The full article contains 201 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.

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Last Updated: 30 July 2008 10:29 AM
Source: Edinburgh Evening News
Location: Edinburgh
Related Topics: Environment , East Lothian

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Papa? Nicole! Papa?,

30/07/2008 12:19:05

"with more than 14,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects on its books"

Aye, and that's the only place you'll get 14 GW from a wind farm, on the books, because out here in the real world, it just doesn't work like that.

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alex paterson,

edinburgh 30/07/2008 12:41:43

#1
How very true,but you have to laugh.

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The Former Mr. Angry,

Perth 30/07/2008 12:52:37

"Almost certain" may not cut it though if in a few hours of still air all the lights go out!

We should be getting a more reasoned and engineering-based report on the reported capacity, not necessarily the marketing version. 180Mw sounds a lot but is that maximum capacity or the mean? What proposals are there to smooth power generation so it's useable in an industrial and domestic context?

I should point out that I'm not anti wind-farm but would like to understand how it can be viable without conventional backup and if it does need this, what's the impact? Also how do we deal with over-capacity (e.g. overnight).

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Destroy the Planet,

30/07/2008 14:12:24

Salmonds smugness is starting to bug me, i'm wary of the cult of personality.

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Joe Smith.,

Moscow 30/07/2008 16:09:39

Is there a windfarm in Gorgie?

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Joe Smith.,

Moscow 30/07/2008 17:40:22

Because if there is, it's collecting a megahop of beer smells.

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william john,

ayr 30/07/2008 18:05:04

I have the misfortune to pass a wind farm Hadyard hill in south ayrshire on a fairly regular basis . 10 revolutions a minute is the average speed of the 58 turbines in the complex. What kind of machine manages to generate large amounts of power at this speed. Come on somebody tell me . Nobody gives any figures for the actual amount of power being put into the national grid. the Power companies just keeps on jacking up the cost of electricty saying that there costs justify this.

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Greenheatman,

TAIN 31/07/2008 11:03:14

It is a pity that Alex Salmond, like all politicians, believe the salemen's patter and all the skillful propaganda. Building wind turbines all over the place is never going to make any difference.

Sadly, the gullible will defend these updated 13th century inventions to their graves on the grounds that every little helps and that wind makes a valuable contribution to the 'energy mix'

If the 'energy mix' was a cake mixture that would be equivalent to adding a pinch of salt.

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Plantagenet,

31/07/2008 23:07:53

They are such a blot on the landscape these turbines, can't they be hidden away from view in remote island locations or far out at sea away from public view. As for energy resources, anybody ever thought of opening up a coal mine, I'm sure there's still a fair bit down there and it might be cheaper to have a coal fire these days than run gas fires and gas central heating.

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