CAIRN UISH WIND FARM
UPDATE
A planning application has been made to erect a further 18 turbines - 15 of these will be 406 feet high and 3 will be 357 feet high.
Destroying more moorland by building something that has already proved to be only 25% efficient is simply crazy.
PLEASE take a couple of minutes to object - all the details can be found here
Location:
Forestry and moorland approx 12km Southwest of Elgin.
Height AMSL:
1200 ft above mean sea levelTurbines
22 x 330 foot turbines (approx 1500 ft amsl) + an application for another 18 up to 406 feet hight (approx 1600 ft amsl)
Has it delivered?
The site has a theoretical capacity of 50.6 Mega watts or 443,256 Mega watt hours per year for the existing 22 turbines.
In 12 months from 2006 it delivered just 12.74 Mega Watts or 111,640 mega watt hours, which is just 25.19 % of its possible output. (figures from offgem 3rd sept 2007)
To put it another way. It is the same as if the Turbines produced NO electricity for 9 months and then operated at their design capacity for 3 months..... and they still get paid £5 million for just 3 months work!
What has been the cost?
Annual subsidy approximately £5.68 million
A Visual eye sore from large areas of North Moray and has caused devestation to another part of Scotlands natrual beauty with 22 massive contrete foundations that can never be removed, 18 km of roads capable to take 105t lorries and another industrial blot on a rural landscape.
When planning was approved, Ted Leeming, director of Natural Power Consultants, which developed the site for Fred Olsen Renewables, said: "...... this announcement is a major step forward for what will be the most powerful wind farm in the UK."
Strange ... it's only chucking out a quarter of what it could do.. oh and by the way, how many power stations have closed?
It's a bit like a car manufacturer saing, "Oh yes... we've built the most powerful V8 in the UK." .... and Clarkson saying,"mmm not quite... it's only running on 2 cylinders!"
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It's not often we get a chance to use it though.
But we know from this example that wind farms are inefficient, so why build more of them??