Bigger Loch Awe wind farm ‘ignores’ limit, say objectors
A plan to increase the height of 17 wind turbines between Loch Awe and Loch Fyne ‘blatantly ignores’ Argyll and Bute Council’s 130m limit for the area, local community councillors say.
At a public meeting in Dalavich in May, Avich and Kilchrenan Community Council resolved to object to the height increase at Blarghour Wind Farm from 136.5m to 180m.
Loch Awe has two wind farms – 20 110m-125m high turbines at Carraig Ghael, and 23 80m high turbines at An Suidhe – with three more in the pipeline, with turbines reaching 180m-200m.
Four years ago, Coriolis Energy Ltd applied to build 17 wind turbines, each 136.5m high, generating 57.8MW at Blarghour Wind Farm with consent referred to Scottish ministers due to its generating size.
Argyll and Bute Council objected as the ‘turbines selected are too large for the receiving landscape’ and that the area either side of Loch Awe had ‘no scope’ for any more turbines over the height of 130m and ‘limited scope’ for turbines 80-130m.
In May 2021 Scottish ministers approved the plan, following the reporter’s recommendation that although it would affect the landscape locally, it would only do so around Dalavich and Loch Avich and would be ‘contained’ there. A new application has since been submitted by Coriolis Energy Ltd, scoping opinion to increase the tip height of Blarghour Wind Farm’s 17 wind turbines from 136.5m to 180m.
In a joint statement following the public meeting, Avich and Kilchrenan Community Council said: ‘The reporter's recommendation for consent referred at length to the balance of judgement required in consideration of the turbine height tolerance limit set out in the planning authority's technical guidance, the Landscape and Wind Energy Capacity Study (LWECS).
‘The LWECS capacity limit for the type of landscape applicable in the Blarghour proposal, is 130 metres in height to blade tip.
‘The reporter argued that the original turbine height proposed of 136.5 metres, being some five per cent over this limit, on balance as a material consideration in the determination of the application was not sufficient in and of itself to render the proposal unacceptable.
‘The reporter stated the undoubted adverse impact on the opposite shoreline communities of Dalavich and Inverinan was significant in terms of visual amenity and landscape impact, but not sufficiently so to deny consent when contemplated alongside other material considerations of national planning policy and renewable energy need.
‘Such loss of visual amenity would also have a likely financial impact on the 60-plus rental cabins in Dalavich.
‘The variation proposal is to increase the turbine height to 180 metres, for the same number of turbines (17) on the same sites.
‘This height is 38.5 per cent over the LWECS maximum for this landscape type.
‘When the original consent recommendation was presented by the reporter as finely balanced with an excess over-height limit of five per cent, the community council submits that the increased turbine height means that fine balance can no longer possibly exist. Were consent for 180-metre turbines ever to be granted, the community council takes the view that this would be grounds for immediate judicial review of such determination, because the planning authority’s technical guidance in force now and likely to be so for the foreseeable future, would have been blatantly ignored.’
A spokesperson for Coriolis Energy said: ‘The reason for seeking a variation to the relevant section 36 consent is that the increase in tip height (and rotor diameter) would substantially increase the energy production (allowing the use of newer, more efficient turbine models) and associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction from Blarghour Wind Farm.
‘Consequently, the wind farm would be able to make an even more valuable contribution to the achievement of the UK and Scottish Government ‘whole system’ targets to decarbonise energy consumption,’ the spokesperson said.