Development plans mean the Scottish drive towards the UK's target of 10 per cent of energy needs derived by green means by 2010 is on track, says Garth Wood

THE amount of wind generation capacity actually installed in the UK at the moment is dwarfed by the amount currently waiting for planning approval.

There are more than 100 projects at consented or planning stages in Scotland alone, too many to be able to convey effectively on this map, and beyond this, there is a further wave of onshore and offshore projects currently undergoing feasibility testing by developers.

If the planning process were to be speeded up, many of these could be built in time for the government's 2010 deadline.

According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), Scotland currently has no functioning offshore projects and 36 operational onshore wind farms, with a total capacity of 858 megawatts (MW).

Projects under construction amount to 11 onshore wind farms, with a capacity of 253MW, and offshore there is the 10MW Beatrice deep water project.

Furthermore, Scotland has 36 consented projects with a total generating capacity of 1,090MW in the pipeline, including two offshore projects with a capacity of 180MW.

In addition, there are 74 onshore projects in the planning stage with a capacity of almost 5,000MW.

Some of the more recently submitted proposals in Scotland include the 80MW proposal for ScottishPower's Areleoch project in Ayrshire, the 38MW project from E.ON for Dungavel Hill in South Lanarkshire, and two small-scale projects, the Hillhead of Auquhirie from the Auquhirie Land Company, and a 2MW application for Broombank Farm near Nairn.

Chris Tomlinson, director of onshore wind at the BWEA, points out that the UK's total installed electricity generation base, including coal, gas, nuclear and renewables, amounts to about 80 gigawatts.

"Wind energy could provide as much as 30 per cent of the UK's electricity requirements in a decade, if the government made this possible," he says.

Tomlinson points to the US in general, and the Texas in particular, as an instance of how quickly wind generation assets can be built once a favourable fiscal climate is in place. "They are throwing up wind farms at a very fast rate."

Wind energy, Tomlinson argues, is a great "hedge" to have in a national energy generation portfolio. It is known in advance what it is going to cost. As such, there is no need to be worried about spikes in world energy prices.

"So any country that has the resource should have at least 10 per cent of its generating power as wind energy, if only as a risk control measure. The green argument of course, makes it vastly more important," Tomlinson notes.

Iain Todd, spokesman for the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG), a spin-out from Aberdeen Council, points out that AREG is in partnership with AMEC Wind to develop a Beatrice-like wind farm off the Aberdeen coast.

"We have the designer who worked on the Beatrice 5MW deep-water turbine and we are looking to create a wind farm with similar 5MW turbines. The aim is to produce enough energy to power most of the residential homes in Aberdeen," he says.

An unusual feature of this project is that AREG wants to ensure that part of the financing for the wind farm is generated from the proceeds of a share issue to the citizens of Aberdeen, who will thus be able to fund their own wind farm - and profit from any revenues that result.

"We issued our scoping report on this project in May 2005 and we are midway through our feasibility studies," he says. If everything works out according to plan, AREG hopes to have the Aberdeen offshore wind farm up and running by 2010, adding substantially to the huge amount of offshore power generation already in the pipeline.