Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[PressedCurdsOfMilk]

^^^ The whimbrel never dropped out of the argument. It was a key aspect of SNH's objection.

 

I don't think any turbines were removed in the area that was of most concern to SNH... correct me if I'm wrong. Just the Scatsta trubines were removed. So it looks like bad news for the whimbrel.

[ArabiaTerra]

Well if you* hadn't been so dead set against the original proposal, then it wouldn't have been reduced so much in size and wouldn't have freed up so much capacity on the link. So if you want someone to blame for a proliferation of turbines all over the Isles, point the finger at "sustainable" Shetland, not VE.

 

 

*You, as in those opposed to the windfarm, not Ched, specifically.

 

Correct, I am dead set against this proposal. Objector tend to be against a proposal. And don't be so utterly stupid, if sustainable shetland were building this windfarm then perhaps you could blame them for proliferation, but they are not. Sustainable Shetland should be thanked for making a huge effort to stop it all together. Viking Energy are planning to build this windfarm so they and their supports will be totally to blame for its impact and future proliferation.

 

Ok, ok, fair do's, I should have specifically marked that last paragraph as sarcasm, sorry.

 

But I was trying to make a specific point. "sustainable" Shetland went on and on about how they supported renewable energy, but that we should only do it at a scale to provide for Shetlands needs. "Fit for Scale and Purpose" was the, frankly gibberish, phrase they kept using. The thing is, despite being asked, they never spelt out what this would consist of, or, how much it would cost.

 

Now, the only system of this type I could find was a system built on the Isle of Eigg, in the Western Isles. There they installed a combined wind and solar system with diesel backup. This system cost £30,000 per household. To scale this up to Shetland size would involve spending only a few million short of the cost of the VE system. This money would have to be put up entirely by the CT as no bank would finance a system with no commercial return, and it would still require a Gremista sized back-up station.

 

So, "sustainable" Shetlands solution would wipe out the CT, for no benefit and would still require hundreds of wind turbines, and a new diesel station.

 

If you want carbon neutral power generation in Shetland, you will get windmills. The choice is either VE, with 103 large turbines and the revenue it will bring in to the islands, or hundreds of small turbines, no revenue brought in and no money left in the CT.

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^ The whimbrel never dropped out of the argument. It was a key aspect of SNH's objection.

 

I don't think any turbines were removed in the area that was of most concern to SNH... correct me if I'm wrong. Just the Scatsta trubines were removed. So it looks like bad news for the whimbrel.

 

The Whimbrel was a stupid objection anyway. Sure, Shetland has 90% of the UK population, but the UK population is insignificant compared to the world population which stretches from Shetland, through Scandinavia and on into Siberia.

 

Furthermore, the Shetland population, of only a couple of hundred birds, has dropped by 50% over the last 10 years. The birds are dying out here anyway, without any turbines being built.

 

On present trends, they will be extinct here in 10 years, VE or no VE.

[PressedCurdsOfMilk]

^^^ Interesting supposition. I believe sustainable shetland has good intent and I agree with their concern about scale, but they don't have the financial backing to put together an alternative proposal let alone support from our local dignitaries. VE had several million of public money and the backing of people in power to the exclusion of all others. There may well be many possible models that might work as an alternative on a local scale that might have been more widely accepted (your Eig idea is obviously not a good one).

 

Is 103 turbines less than the critical mass needed to justify the project in terms of cost/ profitability? [give it a go]

[stilldellin]

^ Have VE not already said they are looking at increasing the size/output of their turbines without increasing the tower sizes ?

[PressedCurdsOfMilk]

The Whimbrel was a stupid objection anyway. Sure, Shetland has 90% of the UK population, but the UK population is insignificant compared to the world population which stretches from Shetland, through Scandinavia and on into Siberia.

 

Furthermore, the Shetland population, of only a couple of hundred birds, has dropped by 50% over the last 10 years. The birds are dying out here anyway, without any turbines being built.

 

On present trends, they will be extinct here in 10 years, VE or no VE.

 

I've not got the expertise in ornithology that you seem to have. This seems to be the sort of attitude that drives a species to extinction and typical of a money driven developer to dismiss a protected species as unimportant. The Whimbrel is a listed (legally protected) species and the likes of SNH and the RSPB work to ensure their protection. Their objection was well justified.

[alexis566]

well if they are as good as the two that came to whalsay what a waste o money they were. hardly ever worked always breaking down..

[paulb]

thats because they would have been old models. imagine the turbine as the car the first lot were always needing repairs ect. over time this improves. same with the turbines.

yes they say they are going to put better turbines up.

 

sadly any local system will require major works to improve the power system that we have at the moment. we and a number of others are struggling to get small turbines connected. strangly orkney does not have this problem.

 

can't comment on the wimble but the thousands of acres of restored moor should help the wildlife. if you want the hills to be natural keep sheep off them. sheep have done terrible damage to the hills you just need to look at them. you had better ban peat digging as well. its the uk goverment target to stop the use of peat. ireland is thinking of banning digging near nature reserves.

[Kavi Ugl]

From The Shetland News.

 

Meanwhile the electricity regulator, the national grid and the company laying the cable will be looking to maximise throughput to justify the £300 million cost.

 

With Viking Energy taking up less than two thirds of the cable’s 600MW capacity, the push will be on for more wind farms to be built as soon as possible, he(Billy Fox) believes.

 

"Proliferation is going to be a very real danger. We could see Shetland turned into a large wind farm.â€

 

This is exactly what will happen and if it's other private ventures then that saves VE the hassle of finding other sites to boost their portfollio.

[paulb]

spread out over yell unst and the south end there is plenty of room. it also allows our sea based energy producers to start planning. whatever happens we need the interconnector or we will not gain from our green energy resourses.

[crofter]

Now, the only system of this type I could find was a system built on the Isle of Eigg, in the Western Isles. There they installed a combined wind and solar system with diesel backup. This system cost £30,000 per household. To scale this up to Shetland size would involve spending only a few million short of the cost of the VE system. This money would have to be put up entirely by the CT as no bank would finance a system with no commercial return, and it would still require a Gremista sized back-up station.

 

Not really a fair comparison though, because there was no electricity there before and the 30,000 figure you quote includes the cost of installing a grid system, including all transformers, switchgear, groundworks and cable laying. Despite the faults, we have already got a distribution network in place in Shetland. Solar installation prices have also dropped substantially since 2007. There are about 80 people living on Eigg, as well as some solar panels and a hydro scheme they have 4 x proven 6kw turbines. If there were 100 people there, there would still be enough power, but the cost per household would fall dramatically. Similarly, in Shetland where there are larger communities, it would be much more cost effective to install larger community turbines, maybe 20kw or even in the 50 - 100kw range so it is ridiculous to scale up the numbers as you have done. Your cost for Shetland is totally meaningless, but it is certainly far too high.

 

Also, how will there be no income from small turbines? The subsidy is payable on all sizes of windmill.

[ArabiaTerra]

The Whimbrel was a stupid objection anyway. Sure, Shetland has 90% of the UK population, but the UK population is insignificant compared to the world population which stretches from Shetland, through Scandinavia and on into Siberia.

 

Furthermore, the Shetland population, of only a couple of hundred birds, has dropped by 50% over the last 10 years. The birds are dying out here anyway, without any turbines being built.

 

On present trends, they will be extinct here in 10 years, VE or no VE.

 

I've not got the expertise in ornithology that you seem to have. This seems to be the sort of attitude that drives a species to extinction and typical of a money driven developer to dismiss a protected species as unimportant. The Whimbrel is a listed (legally protected) species and the likes of SNH and the RSPB work to ensure their protection. Their objection was well justified.

 

I don't have any expertise in ornithology, in fact, I'd never heard of a whimbrel before the objections based on it were raised. However, when those objections were raised, I got my google on and did some research on the beastie.

 

What I found was that the natural range of the bird extends right across Northern Europe into Siberia, they are not even close to being endangered, globally. Shetland is at the extreme Southern edge of this birds range, and, numbers in Shetland have been steadily declining over the past few decades.

 

Now during my research into Global Warming, I found that it is well documented that many species of animals and, especially, birds are moving their natural range northwards in response to Climate Change.

 

The changes in the Whimbrels population in Shetland fit the pattern of a species responding to climate change. Thus, it seemed ridiculous, to me, to be using a species which was clearly responding to climate change, as a reason to object to a project which had the primary purpose of combating climate change. A species which, in Shetland, was inevitably going extinct anyway.

 

Sure, the VE project might kill a few whimbrel, but when the ultimate outcome will be extinction (in Shetland) anyway regardless of VE and the only difference is that VE might cause that extinction in 8 years, rather than 10 years, then to object to the project on behalf of the whimbrel seemed to me to be pointless.

[ArabiaTerra]

Now, the only system of this type I could find was a system built on the Isle of Eigg, in the Western Isles. There they installed a combined wind and solar system with diesel backup. This system cost £30,000 per household. To scale this up to Shetland size would involve spending only a few million short of the cost of the VE system. This money would have to be put up entirely by the CT as no bank would finance a system with no commercial return, and it would still require a Gremista sized back-up station.

 

Not really a fair comparison though, because there was no electricity there before and the 30,000 figure you quote includes the cost of installing a grid system, including all transformers, switchgear, groundworks and cable laying. Despite the faults, we have already got a distribution network in place in Shetland. Solar installation prices have also dropped substantially since 2007. There are about 80 people living on Eigg, as well as some solar panels and a hydro scheme they have 4 x proven 6kw turbines. If there were 100 people there, there would still be enough power, but the cost per household would fall dramatically. Similarly, in Shetland where there are larger communities, it would be much more cost effective to install larger community turbines, maybe 20kw or even in the 50 - 100kw range so it is ridiculous to scale up the numbers as you have done. Your cost for Shetland is totally meaningless, but it is certainly far too high.

 

Also, how will there be no income from small turbines? The subsidy is payable on all sizes of windmill.

 

Oh, I agree, my cost estimate is probably too high, but I did do it in 2007, when the Eigg example was the state of the art, so to speak. Working the same thing out today would come out cheaper.

 

Lets try it:

 

Burradale, running at maximum output can produce 18% of Shetlands needs. To get 100%, you need 6 Burradales (with a bit of capacity to spare for breakdowns etc,).

 

But Burradale is only 52% efficient. So you need twice as much installed capacity which gives us 12 Burradales, or 60 turbines. (Gee, we're halfway to VE levels already.)

 

Wind is intermittent, so you need storage and/or back-up, so that's another Gremista, plus a whole rack of those exploding batteries everyone's afraid of.

 

So, there's your system, anyone want to try and cost it?

 

Regardless of the estimated cost, the only way to pay for it would be through the CT. The only revenue generated would be from our electricity bills which means either they would have to rise massively, or, the system would require subsidy throughout it's lifetime, which would pretty quickly drain the CT dry.

 

So Crofter, or anyone else, have I missed anything? Any glaring howlers in the above?

 

Any better ways of doing it?

[crofter]

Agree that it is difficult to work out, and also a pointless exercise, but you are missing out the subsidy - it would have an income of burradale x 12.

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^^ Good point, the ROC would reduce the cost somewhat.