From the drive of an off-grid, solar-powered cottage in the northwest of Skye, it’s possible to glimpse a wind turbine slowly waving from over the hill. These are the blades of Ben Aketil wind farm, an array of turbines that form a “dragon’s back” trail across the rolling moorland.
The twelve current turbines stand at 120m high, but if developer, the Italian renewables firm Nadara, has its way they will be replaced by giant new turbines 200m in height, so tall they would need to be fitted with lights to warn aviation, in an extension that is set to be the focus next week of a public inquiry.
For local cottage-resident and anti-windfarm campaigner Andrew Robinson the problem, however, isn’t just this one wind farm. He is asking the bigger question of whether Scotland is in danger of producing too much onshore wind, and calling for a planning commission into onshore wind on Skye.
Robinson wasn’t always against windfarms. Five years ago, he and his partner Julia Kirkby moved to this remote spot. They had been looking to get out of the rent trap in Devon and live off grid, with their son – and had come across “an abandoned place on Skye with a big chunk of land that nobody seemed to want”.
The house, which brought them to live close to Kirkby’s mother, was virtually derelict with no connection to water or electricity mains, leaking and dark, its walls turned green. But musicians Robinson and Kirkby had lived alternative lifestyles, new age travellers living in buses and cabins, and were already adept at off grid existence. Buying the cottage was, for them, about living a lower impact lifestyle.
When they moved in those blades already turning over the hill, both at Ben Aketil and also Skye’s other wind farm, Edinbane, nearby, didn’t bother them. Nor, says Robinson, did they really mind when they heard of plans for another windfarm, Ben Sca, still closer. “We thought that was fine. We thought, well one more windfarm that’s a good idea because we need to tackle climate change. They’re part of the green revolution – which was very much where we were at.”
But a tipping point arrived in this area of Skye which, due to proximity to the main powerline, has the island’s highest density of windfarm proposals. “It was only,” Robinson recalls, “when we discovered there were plans for six or seven more windfarms coming behind that, that we realised something different was going on here. It’s particularly affecting this area badly because there is a powerline here already that can take the electricity from here down to the mainland so they’re clustering around the power line.”
“Onshore wind doesn’t feel green anymore,” Robinson says. “It so much contradicts our lifestyle. It’s like the giant corporations, the people who are driving the planet to destruction anyway through over consumption are now making money out of this green revolution. There is no agenda about reducing consumption”.
Though currently there are just two wind farms on Skye, an island of 10,000 inhabitants, a further eight are proposed and in various stages of scoping and planning. In the highly unlikely event that all are approved and built that will mean over 100 turbines, many at 200m, delivering a whopping potential capacity of 700 MW. To give perspective on this, that figure matches the entire increase in capacity allocated to the whole of Scotland for 2030-35.
Robinson worries that the result will be a "thicket" of turbines.
The inquiry follows in the wake, just last week of the Scottish Government's announcement of its approval for the Skye overhead line replacement project, which would see a new line from Skye to Fort Augustus, with bigger pylons and substations constructed to increase capacity from 18MW to 800MW.
Robinson is a driving force in Skye Windfarm Information Group (SWIG) and will be among those who submit evidence over the next week when Ben Aketil becomes the latest in a series of onshore wind projects to end up, following objection by its local authority, at the desk of the Scottish Government reporter and subject of a public inquiry.
Ahead of the inquiry Nadara has submitted an alternative scheme with a reduced turbine maximum blade tip height of 180m for consideration should the reporter find the larger turbines unacceptable.
Certainly the windfarm has its supporters. Crofters, for instance, like Angus Munro, who believe it brings positives to the islands, and who see returns themselves from shares in the wind developments.
“I am in favour of the windfarms, and as a crofter in Ebost would obviously benefit. I fully understand the concerns of mainly non-native and usually incoming people who become Skye residents and worry about the views and scenery being affected, the effect on tourism, etc. To me those people tend to only see one side of the story.”
Munro’s croft has been in the family since 1922, who previously worked on the land as gamekeepers. “I would say 99.9% of the crofting community won’t have a problem with wind farms. We’re only doing what we think is best for our communities. I’m 66 years old and I have not in my whole life living on the island seen any massive benefit to local communities unless they did things themselves. I see the wind farm development is a means of something coming into the community that they’re in control of and it’s guaranteed.
He also observes: “Even without wind farms the National Grid has to be upgraded because it’s falling down. A whole pylon got taken off in a landslide a few year ago. That’s why the upgrade has become urgent because that existing line is at end of life.”
Meanwhile, for campaigners like Robinson this one farm is not the only concern. What they are also drawing attention to is the scale and quantity of wind energy and grid infrastructure in the planning process for Skye. It’s an argument being pitched in other parts of Scotland too, as the question is repeatedly asked, do we need all these turbines? And is Scotland doing too much of the heavy-lifting on wind for the whole of the UK?
For instance, Robinson points out: "There's 10GW already built and another 10GW consented and being built in Scotland. We've already got 20GW of consented or build wind power already and yet by 2050 they only say Scotland is going to need 11GW. So we’ve got twice what we need in 2050."
Some of their figures are from research by Caithness campaigner and architect Kathrin Haltiner, whose most recent analysis, based on comparisons of figures on the cap on capacity for North of Scotland, finds that, after everything already consented is built, there is only 1.8GW less than the cap available to Scotland, and yet there is 2.9GW of capacity already in the planning process, not to mention those at the scoping stage.
Haltiner, whose analysis I look at in an accompanying piece, is calling for a “more selective” consenting process. However, even without this more selective process, there is, in any case, a natural rate of attrition on windfarm projects in planning and many never make it to construction and operation.
Haltiner is not alone in drawing attention to that cap. In March, a group of Scottish onshore wind developers wrote a letter calling on Ed Miliband to clarify the 2035 onshore wind permitted capacity for Scotland in the Clean Power Action Plan.
“Currently," it said, "the cap in the Clean Power Action Plan will allow only 700 MW of additional Scottish onshore wind capacity to connect between 2031 and 2035. This would result in a decrease in the rate of installations allowed after 2030 of over 90%, and amounts to a de-facto ban on Scottish onshore wind post-2030.”
Over soup and freshly baked rolls at Robinson’s cottage, I meet members of SWIG, including German film-maker Thorsten Klein and Swiss producer Lena Vurma, who refer to Haltiner’s research.
They also speak of tonnes of peat dug up in the creation of bases, road capacity and impact on tourism in an island which draws nearly 3 million visitors a year, as they weave a mult-layered argument against Ben Aketil and other Skye windfarms.
“There is obviously an argument,” says Robinson, “to be made about Skye’s landscape being iconic and not wanting it spoiled by wind turbines because we depend on it for tourism, but beyond that, this level of windfarm development shouldn’t be happening anywhere in Scotland to that degree.”
The scenic and touristic nature of Skye is also emphasised by Klein. “In every other country, Skye would be a national park. And to be fair there are also good reasons not to be a National Park. But you start to ask why exactly is wind being developed here? Then you realise that they are doing it here because there is wind and there are waters. I started to think this obviously needs a bigger conversation.”
Robinson would like to see a more strategic approach to wind farm development on Skye. “The Scottish Government has the power to initiate Planning Inquiry Commissions. These are when you look at a big, strategic plan. Three times we’ve written to Gillian Martin, the energy minister, to say that we think on Skye because of its unique nature they should have a planning inquiry commission to look at what it’s appropriate to build here. But they refused that. They just said that the existing planning process is enough.”
One of their calls is for more community wind power, rather than corporate projects. “Our argument long term is that we’re not against wind power but if there’s any more it should be smaller scale and it should be owned by the communities where it is. If you look on Lewis there’s Point and Sandwick, three turbines that they’ve built out there, built by the community. They had to borrow £10 million to do that but they managed to do it and they are now taking a £1m in profit back into the community from three small turbines.”
Ben Aketil is on land owned by the Macleod Estate and it’s not surprising that it views the development favourably. “Ben Aketil was the first wind farm to be built in Skye in 2009. Since then, it has not only generated significant environmental benefits for the Highland region, but it has delivered in the region of £900,000 to the local community and has helped to part-fund a modest share of the major restoration project costs at Dunvegan Castle and the MacLeod Estate.
“With clear evidence of climate change all around us, the MacLeod Estate fully supports renewable energy projects in the right location and at the right scale to mitigate visual impact. In this case, we welcome the fact that Nadara, the developer, has listened to concerns from the community and the Highland Council about visual impact and has proposed reducing the tip height from 200m to 180m. The number of turbines on the site will also reduce from the current 12 turbines to 9 turbines.
“As Ben Aketil is an operational wind farm with all the associated infrastructure in place, it would appear illogical for this viable and well-designed scheme to be refused planning consent. Eventually, it would also lead to the loss of future local community benefit funding, as well as the Isle of Skye Renewables Co-operative.”
However, not all landowners are pro wind developments. Earlier this year, Skeabost Estate owner, Charles McDonald, expressed concerns that the island was “being developed for wind like the Congo was developed for oil”.
He had, he said, rejected offers from three windfarm developers to build on his land because he was “deeply worried” about the impact of the turbines on the island’s character.
Concern about turbines and grid expansion is also echoed by campaigners further down the island at Broadford, where another group is fighting both a proposed wind farm at Breakish and also the infrastructure and build associated with the recently approved replacement powerline.
Martyn Ayre, a former council officer who retired on the island, lives in a house at the edge of Broadford that is almost directly opposite the proposed site of a Sodexo-run temporary camp to house the workers who will build the new powerline.
For Ayre the problem is “the accumulation of what’s happening around the village of Broadford”. He sees not only the Broadford camp site, on land owned by Reform party member Ross Lambie, but also another at Breakish by Balfour Beatty as potentially swamping the village.
“We have the overhead powerline to be replaced. That will be a lot of work. We have the huge substation up at Old Corrie there are two accommodation camps and then we’ve got the wind farm as well. We have 1100 people living in the village. If the two accommodation camps go ahead that’s another 800 people added to the village overnight. 450 in one and 350 in another. Housed in shipping containers. They’ve applied for five years.”
READ MORE:
- 'Overwhelming.' Skye windfarm campaigners call for planning inquiry commission
- Does Scotland really need more onshore wind farms? What the data says
- Why Skye campaign is fighting off wind farm and what is says about energy roll out
He worries that the bright illumination of street lights at the site will pollute the dark skies. Fellow campaigner, Ben Yoxon, who works for the International Otter Survival Fund, has recently done a camera-trap study with local children looking at the wildlife of the site and found eagles, pine martens and otters. He described the absence of an environmental impact assessment as "incomprehensible".
The group also point out the potential impact of the transportation of blades and tower sections up an already frequently congested island, via its one road north. “I worked out recently. If they went ahead with Breakish and all the other windfarms on Skye that would be 390 blades being transported from Kyle Harbour all the way up to where you were yesterday, along this road here.”
What, they ask, will that mean for the A87, the only route from north to south on the island between Broadford and Sligachan? “There will be a linear construction site from Kyle harbour to the NW of Skye,” says Ayre. “Because it all has to come along this one road – it’s the only road there is.”
Rhona Coogan, a former opera singer who runs a local catering business, as well as vice-chair of the community council and campaigner, related her worries. “Having grown up here myself, I just know that the practicality of trying to get from say Portree to Kyle of Lochalsh for an appointment or something – with several things moving at five miles an hour.”
The house she rents backs onto the proposed Breakish windfarm site. "I'm concerned," she says, "about the over-industrialisation of Skye because it's going to change our way of life here, from simple things like getting from A to B to not being able to recognise our villages anymore because they are going to be overwhelmed with construction vehicles, abnormal loads coming through the village - and ultimately that's not the environment I want my child to grow up in. It's not the upbring that I had and I think we have to do our utmost to preserve and protect the environment here on Skye."
Not everyone, however, sees this as the industrialisation of landscape. Angus Munro, for instance, scoffs at the term. "How is it industrialised? Fair enough if they turned a hillside into a porcupine with wind turbines but that’s not the case.”
For him the developments, from Ben Aketil to the powerline, are broadly positive. “I think," he says, "the reality is that windfarm development will go ahead, with planning conditions and restrictions, as will the national grid upgrade and that the local communities will benefit from the various negotiations and financial inputs from the developers. These are guaranteed benefits and not the dreams of those who want to push for community ownership and development.”
Many across Scotland will be watching the Ben Aketil inquiry. The level of concern across the Highlands over clean energy infrastructure was demonstrated just last weekend, by a large turn out for a public meeting in Beauly’s Phipps Hall. 53 Community Councils representing over 72,000 residents across the Highlands expressed unanimous support for a joint statement calling for a pause in the wave of major energy infrastructure developments.
The feelings over Skye, meanwhile, from either side, are strong. Some want to stop onshore wind in its tracks, others just to see it reap the best benefits for the people of the island. Not one person I spoke to come across as climate-sceptic or nimby. Far from it. It's hard to find people that seem more green than, for instance, Andrew Robinson and Julia Kirkby.
Almost all emphasised their desire to fight climate change and biodiversity loss. Rather what was expressed was differing views on how to get there, and what else must be fought for and valued along the way.
