Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
The UK now has more than 15GW of operational onshore wind capacity.
The milestone was broken after EDF’s Benhar onshore wind farm in North Lanarkshire began operation.
With a capacity of 30.1MW, the Benhar wind farm consists of seven turbines.
It brings the UK’s onshore wind capacity to 15.002GW across 2,631 projects.
Matthieu Hue, chief executive of EDF Renewables UK said: “It is great to see the impact that our efforts as a business and as part of the wider industry are having on accelerating the journey to net zero. Onshore wind has a major part to play in reaching UK’s target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“Opening West Benhar wind farm in recent weeks is a positive step to realising the country’s ambitions.”
Despite the milestone, renewable energy advocates have repeated calls for the government to be more ambitious with its onshore wind targets.
In particular, RenewableUK is urging the government to double the amount of onshore wind in the UK to 30GW by 2030.
RenewableUK head of policy James Robottom said: “We’re urging the government to set an ambitious UK-wide target of 30 gigawatts of onshore wind by 2030, so that we can maximise the economic benefits of this technology throughout the country.
“Our research shows this would boost the economy by £45 billion and create 27,000 jobs. We need to accelerate the build out of new projects in areas where local communities support onshore wind if we’re to double our capacity by the end of the decade and get closer to the government’s net zero target.
“To achieve this, we need to see more projects going ahead in England in areas where they have local community support.
“Despite the very minimal changes to planning policy announced by the government in September, we still face an English planning system which is stacked against onshore wind, treating it differently to every other energy source or infrastructure project.
“Under the current rules we’re not going to see investment in new projects at anything like the scale needed to reinvigorate onshore wind in England after nine years of lost progress. New planning policies could unlock green growth and bring economic benefits to communities which are currently being denied opportunities to benefit from onshore wind”.
Most of the UK’s onshore wind fleet is Scotland with 9.4GW up and running, which is 63% of the nation’s total onshore wind capacity.
In England, where the de facto ban on onshore wind introduced in 2015 is still largely in place, 2.93GW is fully operational (less than 20% of the UK’s capacity). Only one new turbine has gone live in England since the start of 2023, and one other is under construction.
Northern Ireland has 1.35GW (9% of UK onshore wind capacity) and Wales has 1.26GW (8%).
Please login or Register to leave a comment.