Europe's Largest Onshore Wind Farm Switched on in Scotland  

Renewable Energy World has a report on a new Scottish wind farm - Europe's Largest Onshore Wind Farm Is Switched on in Scotland.

Today, the final phase of Europe's largest onshore wind farm is being turned on in Scotland. The 322-megawatt (MW), 140-turbine Whitelee wind farm was built by ScottishPower Renewables, which is part of the Spanish power business Iberdrola.

In Spain and internationally, the Iberdrola Group, is the world’s largest developer of wind power, with nearly 9700 MW of installed capacity. The wind farm uses Siemens 2.3-MW machines.

Positioned 370 meters (1200 feet) above sea level, 15 kilometers (9 miles) outside of Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, the new wind farm has over half a million people living within a 30-km radius of it. It’s one of the first large-scale wind farms to be constructed close to a large population center. The first phase of the wind farm started feeding power into the grid in January 2008.

Potentially, the wind farm could be extended to a massive 600 MW: this became more likely today when a proposal to extend the existing scheme by another 130 MW was been approved by the Scottish Government, thus powering an additional 70,000 homes.

But the company is also carrying out scoping work on a potential second extension, which could add a further 140 MW. It is anticipated that an official planning application will be submitted for this later in the summer.