Scotland 'should not rush to develop windfarms'

In an article written for the Parliamentary Monitor magazine, MSP Murdo Fraser says that renewable energy is important but Scotland should not become over-reliant on onshore windfarms.

There are few issues as contentious in rural Scotland today than the development of large-scale wind farms. The Scottish Executive have set ambitious targets for development of renewable energy – 18 per cent of generating capacity by 2010 and 40 per cent by 2020 – backed up by generous incentives through the issue of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs). The result of this has been a modern gold rush on Scotland’s hills as developers and power companies seek to cash in, vying with each other to identify suitable sites and win planning permission.

As a consequence, many elected politicians have found their mail bags and surgeries dominated by concerned locals worried about the visual and environmental impact of wind turbines, their effect on birds and wildlife, lose of property values, and so on. This is a particular problem in Perthshire, part of the area which I represent, where because of its proximity to the Central Belt of Scotland, where most of the population live, and its access to good grid connections, there seems to be a current planning application for virtually every hillside.

In response to these widespread concerns, the Scottish parliament’s enterprise and culture committee established an inquiry into renewable energy in Scotland. This spent six months taking evidence from interested parties across the country. The committee’s report was published in June, and makes serious criticisms of the Scottish Executive’s current approach. Remarkably, considering the cross-party nature of the committee, and the fact that the Executive parties have a majority, the report was unanimous in its conclusions.

The conclusion of the report could be summarised in one sentence, namely we have great opportunities for renewable energy but these will not be exploited with the current over-reliance on onshore wind. There are two points in particular arising from this conclusion that are worth developing.

Firstly, there is tremendous economic opportunity for Scotland to lead the way when it comes to developing new technologies such as wave and tidal power, and indeed hydrogen cell technology. It is the case that in relation to wind power, while we have some construction jobs in Scotland, the intellectual property is owned elsewhere, particularly in Denmark. There is therefore little economic benefit to Scotland, comparatively speaking, in pursing the wind power further. However, we can be world leaders in relation to these offshore technologies.

The problem at the moment is that the ROCs regime creates a level playing field and does not distinguish between different types of technology. Because onshore wind is by far the cheapest to develop, we are therefore seeing an "all our eggs in one basket" approach. We therefore have to increase the incentives to develop the new technologies, and that will mean disincentivising onshore wind by comparison. The committee’s recommendation was that the ROC regime had to be made more sophisticated to deal with this issue.

The second key aspect is in relation to the issue of national planning guidance for the siting of onshore wind farms. It was interesting that all those giving evidence to the committee on this point – whether objectors, representatives of local authorities, power companies or developers – all agreed that their was a lack of national locational guidance. The committee agreed unanimously that a national strategic framework for onshore windfarm planning applications was required.

Until new national strategic guidance is in place, the Scottish Conservatives are calling for a moratorium on planning applications for onshore wind farms where these applications face a substantial body of objections.

The current rush to develop onshore wind will have a very significant effect on our rural landscape, and could have a seriously detrimental effect on our tourist industry. We believe that we cannot afford to take a short term view on these matters. Bringing in a moratorium as the Conservatives suggest would allow an opportunity for us to pause and think, allowing time for new national strategic guidance to be published. It would not be a blanket ban on onshore windfarms, as it would only apply where there was a substantial body of objection and this would be a matter for local authorities to determine.

I believe that all political parties in Scotland are in favour of renewable energy. However, we have to win public opinion over on our side, and will not do that if all people think about when they hear the words "renewable energy" is large wind turbines on our hillsides, which at best will always be controversial, and at worst are causing real anger in a rural Scotland which feels that it is suffering at the hands of urban dominated policy.

Murdo Fraser is Scottish Conservative spokesman on enterprise and MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife