Are wind farms the way ahead for Scotland?
The Crown Estate, which owns the U.K.'s seabed stretching for 12 miles from shore, has today given its blessing to 10 new wind farms in Scotland. If the companies looking to operate the wind farms are able to gain funding for the project, we could see literally hundreds of turbines generating significant power up and down the Scottish coastline. Initial figures suggest that while the power produced at peak times would equate to 15% of the U.K.'s requirement it could be enough to cover the vast majority of power required by Scotland.
While a number of leading UK power companies have made initial bids for the contracts up for grabs, we have seen a number of false dawns in the wind farm sector and many are concerned this may yet turn out to be another. The problem with such power sources is the fact that by very definition they are unreliable and difficult to forecast however improvements in wind farm technology could well be the key to these new projects.
Significant taxpayer funding will no doubt be required to put the potential 10 wind farms in place although there will be significant cost benefits to both the public and the UK authorities in due course.
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