News / Yell wind farm plans on display
THE PROPOSED wind farm for the south end of Yell, in Shetland, could be as large as 100 megawatts, it emerged on Thursday.
The subsidiary of German-owned renewable energy firm Enertrag are holding a public exhibition about the Beaw Field wind farm project in the Burravoe hall, on Thursday 1 September.
Members of the company’s project team, including newly appointed project manager Colin Dickie, will be in the local hall between 2 and 9pm to discuss the project.
Mr Dickie said the project had changed considerably since it had first been made public as a 65MW wind farm in October last year.
The company is now looking at erecting up to 17 turbines with each turbine up to 163 metres high, 18 metres taller than originally envisaged.
Mr Dickie said by that by increasing the height of the tower and the length of the blades of the turbines, the generation capacity of the wind farm could almost be doubled.
He added that the project was very much at “the early stages” with the company carrying out bird, hydrology, landscape and archaeological studies.
“We have got a tremendous response from local people in the surrounding area. The vast majority of people are very enthusiastic about the proposal.
“They see this as a good investment as there will be a lot of money coming into the area through the community fund,” he said.
The wind farm is planned on common grazing belonging to the locally owned Burravoe Estate. Around 60 crofters have shares in the common grazing.
The project will only go ahead if an inter-connector cable between Shetland and the Scottish mainland is built, which in turn depends on the outcome of the planning application for the controversial 457 MW Viking Energy wind farm.
Mr Dickie added: “We are keen to make sure that local people are kept fully informed throughout the process. We are still at a very early stage and this is the first of a number of exhibitions, but we are keen to hear the views of the community from the outset.
“There are a number of issues where input from the community will be invaluable, not least around ensuring that the island benefits socially and economically from this investment, and we would urge everybody to come along and give us their thoughts.”
The exhibition will include details of the various environmental studies underway and will give an outline of possible timescales.
As well as the exhibition at Burravoe, Enertrag will have a stall at the Yell Show in East Yell Hall on Saturday 3 September.
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