UK's largest wind farm to be rebuilt with fewer, larger turbines

One of Europe's biggest onshore wind farms is to be flattened and rebuilt with fewer, taller turbines, its owner has announced.

Whitelee Windfarm has been producing electricity for about 20 years on a stretch of moorland near Eaglesham, south of Glasgow, but is reaching the end of its life.

Scottish Power Renewables says the existing 215 turbines will be replaced in three phases with around 124, each of which will be about 110m (361ft) taller.

The £1.5 billion "repowering" project will take 10 years to complete and will double the electricity output from 539 megawatts to 1 gigawatt, which is enough to power about 650,000 homes.

An application has been made to the Scottish government's energy consents unit and the full planning application is expected to be submitted by the end of next year.

It is anticipated that the upgrade will be fully operational by 2035.

The first phase of Whitelee was officially opened by then first minister Alex Salmond in 2009, having been commissioned a year earlier, and was the largest onshore wind farm in Europe at the time.

It initially consisted of 140 turbines but has been expanded twice to the current size.

Scottish Power Renewables chief executive, Charlie Jordan, said the company was planning for when the turbines reached the end of their natural lifespan.

"At this critical moment in the push for home-grown clean, green energy, it's important we don't go in reverse and lose the clean capacity that's been hard-earned over the last two decades as it comes to the end of its operational life," he added.

Scottish Power's chief executive Keith Anderson said that repowering the site was "critical" for its future.

He told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast: "Whitelee is an iconic wind farm, it's the biggest one in the UK and it's a huge attraction."

He said: "They will be bigger and taller, but you need to put that in context of the landscape.

"It's a huge open area which was covered with commercial forestry, a lot of which we've taken away.

"We've turned the environment back to actually more of its natural state."

He added: "If we increase the size of the site and the output of the site, then we generate more renewable power for the country, which is a brilliant thing."

Whitelee was built on Eaglesham Moor and contains footpaths and tracks for walkers to wander between the turbines as well as a visitor centre.

It covers an area of approximately 83 sq km (32 sq miles) which is almost half the size of neighbouring Glasgow.

It has become a popular spot for dog walkers and Scottish Power said its three-phase approach to repowering meant the site could remain accessible to the public during the rebuild.

It is not the first wind farm to be upgraded this way - the 26 turbines at Hagshaw Hill in South Lanarkshire were repowered last year and replaced with 14 larger ones.

But Whitelee will be the biggest to have all its turbines replaced and the company says 99% will be recycled.

More than half of Great Britain's current wind farm capacity is expected to reach the end of its life in the next decade, according to analysts Regen.

That means more will be considered for repowering, creating a pipeline of construction work.

Industry body Scottish Renewables says repowering presents a huge opportunity to boost energy security.

CEO Angela Hepworth added: “Modern turbines can generate significantly more electricity from existing sites, helping Scotland make the most of its abundant renewable resources.”

The work at Whitelee is expected to generate about £330m for the Scottish economy.