Bitter blow to SNP as wind farm schemes in England power ahead

SCOTLAND produces less than a third of the UK’s wind power, new Government figures show.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change says that market share north of the Border has slumped to a record low.

Nearly 3,000 turbines have been erected across Scotland. But between October and December last year, they produced only 32.1 per cent of the UK’s wind-generated electricity – 4,176 gigawatt hours of a total of 13,018.

Investors are backing more efficient offshore developments in shallow waters from Kent to Yorkshire, meaning that England is now beginning to dominate the sector. The UK Government scrapped subsidies for new onshore developments on April 1 and, in the last year, only a quarter of new wind projects were sited north of the Border.

Linda Holt, spokesman for antiwind farm campaign Scotland Against Spin, said: ‘Ministers should admit that the era of carpeting the landscape with ugly turbines at public expense for very little return is over. Onshore wind as we know it has had its day. The Scottish Government should be devoting its energies, money and policy innovation to more reliable and efficient technologies.

‘Within five to ten years, most of the turbines that exist will start to reach the end of their useful lives.

‘Ministers must now decide which way we go – do we begin taking them down and cleaning up the Scottish countryside or do we allow big developers to try to squeeze out the last drops of profit by replacing them with 200-metre turbines in the face of overwhelming public opposition?’

In 2011, then-First Minister Alex Salmond predicted that Scotland would become the ‘green energy powerhouse of Europe’.

The SNP has committed to satisfying Scotland’s electricity demand from renewables by 2020 – the figure stood at around 58 per cent last year.

In 2009, more than half of Britain’s turbine capacity was in Scotland but that figure has now slumped.

However, the SNP blamed delays in UK Government subsidies.

A spokesman said: ‘We are very concerned that the damaging and premature cuts to support for renewable energy by the Tory Government will hamper future progress.

‘Scotland has a substantial pipeline of investment with ministers consenting to over 4,000MW of offshore wind developments. These projects have the potential to offer enormous benefits.’