Scotland set for outsized role in delivering the UK's onshore wind

First proposed back in 2012, the 67-megawatt (MW) capacity Benbrack project was acquired by Red Rock Renewables, a joint venture between Irish utility ESB and SDIC, a Chinese state-owned energy group, in 2021. It’s one of 53 onshore wind farms of over 50MW capacity to have been approved by the Scottish government so far, according to industry body RenewableUK.

Much of the focus on Scotland’s wind power ambitions is on offshore wind in the North Sea, mostly under the vast ScotWind project. That’s because offshore’s sheer scale tends to turn heads. Some of the ScotWind projects call for over 200 turbines that are almost the height of the Eiffel Tower – many times taller than those at Benbrack.

Last month Buchan Offshore Wind submitted to the Scottish government a consent application to build an up to 70-turbine wind farm northeast of Fraserburgh, indicating some progress. Yet the mood among developers has darkened thanks to US president Donald Trump’s hostility to offshore “windmills”, persistent cost pressures, as well as grid and supply chain issues.

Doubts are now growing over whether the UK can indeed deliver the hoped-for 43-50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind under energy secretary Ed Miliband’s so-called Clean Power 2030 target, which calls for 90 per cent of energy to be produced from renewables by then.

This means it’s to onshore wind that more attention must now shift – and to Scotland’s role in it. While onshore wind is supposed to deliver 27-29GW under the 2030 plan, very little can be delivered by England. That’s because while a de facto ban on developing onshore wind farms in England was lifted by Labour in July 2024 after having been in place since 2015, it takes five to seven years to develop an onshore wind farm. This hands Scotland an outsized role in onshore.

At the annual Scottish Renewables onshore wind conference in Edinburgh this week Chris Stark, head of “mission control” in Miliband’s department for energy security and net zero, said he was eyeing an onshore wind “super-cycle”.

What might this look like? RenewableUK’s Energy Pulse database estimates that Scotland accounts for as much as 68 per cent, or 16.7GW, of a total 24.4GW of planned onshore wind capacity that could be operational UK-wide by 2030. England would account for only 3.2GW.

Yet barriers remain, including lack of grid connections, unblocking sensitive projects planned near military and aviation sites, overcoming local community opposition, and facing down the anti-net zero politics of Reform UK.

One of the largest undeveloped parts of Scotland for onshore wind, and which could contribute up to 6GW, is around the Eskdalemuir Seismic Array in Dumfries and Galloway. It is one of three UK facilities measuring seismic activity and is managed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which limits how close wind turbines can get given that they can generate unhelpful seismic vibrations.

Negotiations have been underway about allowing more onshore wind nearer the site. Energy minister Michael Shanks said at the conference that the UK government was “confident there will be a solution” that satisfies both energy security and national security.

Meanwhile, local opposition to onshore wind farms has been on the rise as more projects have been announced in the two years since the introduction of a new Scottish government planning regime. Eversheds, a law firm, says 65 applications have been lodged for 50MW or larger projects since then, up from only 35 in a comparable period up to 2020.

Objections to wind farms run from complaints that they disturb heritage and archaeological sites to the visual. Last month, the Court of Session in Edinburgh overturned government approval for an 11-turbine wind farm planned by Germany’s EnergieKontor in Sutherland called Strath Oykel, handing a victory to campaigners who had described it as a “ring of steel”.

One answer to this is breathing new life into the many onshore wind farms in Scotland that are coming to the end of their typical 25-year life, and which likely have already had community buy-in at their inception.

Under a process known as repowering, developer Nadara is currently extending the life of four of its 25 onshore wind farms in Scotland, including Beinn Ghlas, a wind farm operating in Argyll and Bute since 1999. Its 14 turbines will be replaced by half that number, with output increased four-fold, says Finley Becks-Phelps, UK head of development. Nadara believes that while repowering is not always straightforward it is “the only approach that can help the UK reach its Clean Power 2030 target”.

Charlotte Stamper, co-founder of consultancy The Circularity Collective, said that while the installation of taller turbines as part of repowering may not always be acceptable at certain projects, the power multiplier was compelling.

“We should be looking at where there are already wind farms and maximising those because we are unlocking more clean power,” she said.

Ultimately, however, some ugly politics is looming. Reform UK has already made clear that it will scrap net zero targets, as well as cancel offshore wind licences if it wins power.

Some in the industry, at least, are paying attention. “I don’t think we should turn a blind eye to the risk of Reform,” Matthieu Hue chief executive of EdF power solutions, told the conference. “We need to make sure there is more recognition of the benefits that the industry brings to communities. We should be on the front foot rather than waiting to see what happens.”