Campaigner warns ‘monster turbines’ will destroy views along north coast of Caithness and Sutherland
Plans for 125 “monster turbines” off the north coast will destroy the sea views from Dunnet Head all the way to Durness, a campaigner has claimed.
Kathrin Haltiner, who runs the Highland Renewables Database website, described the proposed West of Orkney Windfarm as “an absolute disaster” and claimed it would cause “unprecedented harm to nature”.
Highland Council’s north planning applications committee agreed last week to raise no objection to the offshore plans for the development.
If approved, the wind farm will be around 25km from the north Sutherland coast and about 30km west of Orkney Mainland. It will consist of 125 turbines on fixed foundations with a blade-tip height of up to 360m.
There will be cable landfalls east of Dounreay as well as a substation at Spittal and underground cables covering a distance of around 33km.
Ms Haltiner, who is originally from Switzerland and moved to Caithness eight years ago, said: “This is an absolute disaster. There is unprecedented harm to nature, and the view along the whole north coast will be destroyed.
“From Dunnet Head all the way to Durness, these monster turbines will dominate the view. All these beautiful beaches will be dominated by industrialised views rather than nature – that’s not what tourists come for.”
Last month, at a meeting organised by Halkirk District Community Council, Ms Haltiner was among those who spoke out against plans by SSEN Transmission for the massive Banniskirk Hub substation.
In an email to Highland councillors ahead of last Wednesday’s planning meeting, Ms Haltiner warned that “the scale of landscape, visual, seascape, ecological and ornithological environmental harms” caused by West of Orkney Windfarm would be “utterly unprecedented”.
She also claimed that the wind farm could end up costing the consumer “billions” in constraint payments and subsidies.
Ms Haltiner told councillors: “Scotland does not need this electricity and it can’t get to England.
“SSE pretends that Banniskirk will help with exporting electricity south. It won’t… Not a single kWh from West of Orkney can be exported even with Banniskirk built unless all the boundary capacity constraints, all the way to London, are addressed.”
A spokesperson for West of Orkney Windfarm said: “West of Orkney is the most advanced ScotWind project and it is welcome that both Highland Council and Orkney Islands Council have backed the plans and ‘raised no objection’.
“We will continue to engage with the community and businesses as we progress the proposals and to outline the long-term economic benefits this project could bring to Caithness.”
Last week, West of Orkney Windfarm development manager Jack Farnham thanked Highland Council for its support and welcomed “another important milestone” for the project.
He added: “We will continue to work on achieving the critical remaining project milestones in order to generate clean power by 2030.”
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The wind farm will have an expected capacity of around 2GW, with first power scheduled by 2030.
In June last year, the onshore connections and plans for a new substation in Caithness were given outline approval by Highland councillors.
The final decision on the offshore consent will be made by Scottish ministers.
The wind farm is being developed by a joint venture comprising Corio Generation, TotalEnergies and Renewable Infrastructure Development Group.
The developers have supported a number of initiatives in the north of Scotland, including a £1 million research and development programme being led by the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, a £900,000 education initiative led by the University of the Highlands and Islands and a £125,000 Fit for Offshore Renewables scheme led by ORE Catapult.
The wind farm was backed by councillors in Orkney over a year ago.
The offshore consent submission includes applications for consent under the Electricity Act 1989 and marine licence applications under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. Accompanying these are assessments based on survey data collected over two-and-a-half years.