August 5, 2011
Scotland

Plans for wind farm unveiled after 8 years

By Frank Urquhart, The Scotsman, scotsman.com 5 August 2011

Plans have finally been submitted for the construction of a £150 million offshore demonstration wind farm off the coast at Aberdeen – eight years after the project was first announced to underpin the city’s drive to become Europe’s energy capital.
The 11-turbine wind farm, being established as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, will stretch from Aberdeen to an area off Blackdog at Balmedie, on the outskirts of the city.

Plans for the ambitious development were first released in September 2003 as part of a major strategy to develop Aberdeen as a key centre for the renewables industry.

The demonstration development is being spearheaded by Swedish electricity company Vattenfall and the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group.

The consortium behind the scheme, which also includes subsea company Technip, announced yesterday that a consent application to allow the project to go ahead had been submitted to Marine Scotland.

David Hodkinson, the UK manager of Vattenfall, said: “Our consent application will now be subject to the formal consultation and decision process. We believe we have made a good case for the development, which places Aberdeen at the heart of the development of new technologies to serve the growing European offshore wind sector.

“We would build the project with the same attention to detail in respect of environmental and community considerations, as we have for our previous developments”.

Ron Cookson, senior vice president of Technip Offshore Wind, said: “It is our belief that this project could, with considerable EU support, be the catalyst which ‘kick starts’ the region’s rapid emergence as an industry-leading player in marine renewables.”

The project is being backed by Scottish Enterprise, the renewables industry and local business leaders.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/08/05/plans-for-wind-farm-unveiled-after-8-years/