Wind Power in The United Kingdom - Onshore Wind Farms

Onshore Wind Farms

See also: List of onshore wind farms in the United Kingdom

The first commercial wind farm was built in 1991 at Delabole in Cornwall, it consisted of 10 turbines each with a capacity to generate a maximum of 400 kW. Following this, the early 1990s saw a small but steady growth with half a dozen farms becoming operational each year, the larger wind farms tended to be built on the hills of Wales, examples being Rhyd-y-Groes, Llandinam, Bryn Titli and Carno. Smaller farms were also appearing on the hills and moors of Northern Ireland and England. The end of 1995 saw the first commercial wind farm in Scotland go into operation at Hagshaw Hill. The late 1990s saw sustained growth as the industry matured. In 2000 the first turbines capable of generating more than 1MW were installed and the pace of growth started to accelerate as the larger power companies like Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern became increasingly involved in order to meet legal reguirements to generate a certain amount of electricity using renewable means (see Renewables Obligations below). Wind turbine development continued rapidly and by the mid 2000s 2MW+ turbines were the norm. In 2007, the German wind turbine producer Enercon installed the first 6 MW model ("E-126"); The nameplate capacity was changed from 6 MW to 7 MW after technical revisions were performed in 2009 and to 7,5 MW in 2010.

Growth continued with bigger farms and larger, more efficient turbines sitting on taller and taller masts. Scotland's sparsely populated, hilly and windy countryside became a popular area for developers and the United Kingdom's first 100MW+ farm went operational in 2006 at Hadyard Hill in South Ayrshire. 2006 also saw the first use of the 3 MW turbine. In 2008 the largest onshore wind farm in England was completed on Scout Moor and the repowering of the Slieve Rushen wind farm created the largest farm in Northern Ireland. In 2009 the largest wind farm in the United Kingdom went live at Whitelee on Eaglesham Moor in Scotland. This is a 539 MW wind farm consisting of 215 turbines. Approval has been granted to build several more 100MW+ wind farms on hills in Scotland and will feature 3.6 MW turbines.

As of January 2012 there were 307 operational onshore wind farms in the United Kingdom with a total of 4428 MW of nameplate capacity. A further 1464 MW of capacity is being constructed, while another 3.9 GW of schemes have planning consent and 7.6 GW are in the planning stage.

In 2009, United Kingdom onshore wind farms generated 7,564 GW·h of electricity, this represents a 2% contribution to the total United Kingdom electricity generation (378.5 TW·h).

Large onshore wind farms are usually directly connected to the National Grid, but smaller wind farms are connected to a regional distribution network, termed "embedded generation". In 2009 nearly half of wind generation capacity was embedded generation, but this is expected to reduce in future years as larger wind farms are built.

Gaining planning permission for onshore wind farms continues to prove difficult, with many schemes stalled in the planning system, and a high rate of refusal. The RenewableUK (formerly BWEA) figures show that there are approximately 7,000 MW worth of onshore schemes waiting for planning permission. On average a wind farm planning application takes 2 years to be considered by a local authority, with an approval rate of 40%. This compares extremely unfavourably with other types of major applications, such as housing, retail outlets and roads, 70% of which are decided within the 13–16-week statutory deadline; for wind farms the rate is just 6%. Approximately half of all wind farm planning applications, over 4 GW worth of schemes, have objections from airports and traffic control on account of their impact on radar. In 2008 NATS en Route, the BWEA, the Ministry of Defence and other Government departments signed a Memorandum of Understanding seeking to establish a mechanism for resolving objections and funding for more technical research.