Wind News

Friday 19 February 2010

The 20 turbine wind farm will be located on the Corriegarth Estate near Inverness

Environmental consultancy firm SLR Consulting has revealed that it has successfully gained planning permission for a 20 turbine wind farm in Scotland on behalf of its client, Edinburgh-based North British Windpower (NBW).

The wind farm is set to have a total generating capacity of 49MW and will be located on the Corriegarth Estate on the edge of the Monadhliath Mountains, to the north-east of Fort Augustus, near Inverness.

SLR prepared the Environmental Statement and planning application for the wind farm, which was submitted to The Highland council in July 2007. According to the consultancy firm, the application received the planning officer's recommendation for approval and was passed unanimously by the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey planning applications committee last month (January 19).

The company said that the Corriegarth wind farm would generate enough electricity to supply the equivalent of more than 27,000 homes per year over its 25 year operational period - equivalent to approximately 28% of the households in The Highland council area.

As a result, it is expected to have the capability to offset approximately 110,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Disciplines

Input on the project came from a number of SLR technical disciplines including landscape, transport, ecology, hydrology and geology (with third party ornithologist), archaeology and EMI/Aviation consultants.

SLR also prepared a detailed site design making use of the natural ‘bowl' feature in the landform, while also taking into account the environmental constraints and optimising the generating capacity.

The project manager for the wind farm, Morag Edward, who is based at SLR's Warrington office, said: "This is a great example of how SLR can co-ordinate and deliver wind energy schemes from conception to approval and the success enhances our growing reputation for planning and EIA within the renewable energy sector.

"It is expected that the wind turbines, located on the Corriegarth Estate on the edge of the Monadhliath Mountains to the north-east of Fort Augustus, would be rated at up to 2.5MW each with a total generating capacity of up to 49MW."

Construction will commence following discharge of planning conditions and once started the project is likely to take approximately 12 months to complete.