Highland fury as pylons march south with Scotland’s wind power 

How democratic does this look to you?

Pylons are marching across the landscape of the Highlands, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Angus to bring (mostly) wind energy from rural areas to (mostly) power England.

That’s hard to dispute because Scotland produced 113% of its electricity consumption through renewables in 2022 – so we are wind-full unless Scots can use or store that energy locally in a way our Margaret Thatcher-devised, Westminster-controlled energy system doesn’t currently allow.

So instead, 34% of all energy generated in Scotland in 2023 was exported to the rest of the UK. The vast majority to England. And that’s before the surge in power exports that will follow the construction of the new super-connector from Peterhead to Yorkshire.

Sure, some vital balancing gas and other energy come in the other direction. But the balance is hugely skewed. Scotland is a net green energy exporter – and 53 community councils from Kiltarlity to Caithness have united to demand a pause, real local involvement and a coherent energy strategy in Highland Council and the Scottish Government to replace what currently resembles a Highland Wild West.

Each planning application is considered on its own merits – but sometimes a battery storage plant or another wind farm is cheek by jowl. Yet, that’s in a separate planning process.

The result can be one remote glen with eight wind farms– each considered separately – and even for a self-proclaimed lover of wind that is not OK. Scotland is wind-full, so more generation will only hit grid bottlenecks at Carlisle and trigger constraint payments to producers for stuck energy. How will that help the planet, the Scottish exchequer or local communities? Can we have a public debate? It seems not.

A hugely important meeting of Highlanders took place in Beauly on Saturday – 53 community councils representing 72,000 people and a third of the Highland population – perhaps the biggest representative grassroots meeting since the Crofting Acts. No SNP or Labour MSP or councillor attended and there has been no real press coverage beyond the Highlands.

Councillor Helen Crawford started the ball rolling. She says: “Over 60 community councils publicly backed my motion last year which got a map published that revealed more than 1300 major applications.

“Local democracy has been shot to pieces. People are being totally ignored. One woman at our event broke into tears.

“People cannot cope with the feeling they have nowhere to turn.”

For full transparency, Helen is a Conservative councillor. But I’ve spoken with three prominent Highland Yes campaigners who say she speaks for their communities. Local LibDem MP Jamie Stone has asked a question in the Commons. And that seems to be it.

Traditional musician and Beauly inhabitant Julie Fowlis posted a three-minute video about the Saturday community council meeting on Facebook and Instagram. It’s been shared a quarter of a million times. So why isn’t Highland Council responding to communities?

Applications for pylons and big windfarms over 50 megawatts go straight to the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit (ECU) – the clue is in the name, Crawford wryly observes – but Highland Council is a statutory consultee and could object. If it does, the application goes to a public local inquiry. But there’s talk of “streamlining” that process, Highland Council doesn’t have the money and councils are bound by the Holyrood’s National Planning Framework 4, which suggests energy infrastructure should be approved.

So, three new energy substation applications were approved by Highland Council yesterday, four days after the public plea for a pause – auguring badly for an even bigger development.

SSEN Transmission has submitted a planning application for a 400kV substation and converter station project at Fanellan – a wee hamlet near the village of Kiltarlity, to support national energy security and clean power targets by converting all the wind energy in the Scottish glens so it’s suitable for the grid.

But the footprint of Fanellan is humungous – a 66-acre substation on an 800-acre farmland site which will also house temporary housing and kit. To get an idea of scale – 800 acres is 600 football pitches in size.

Locals say SSEN admit lorries will be thundering through Beauly and Kiltarlity at the rate of one every minute for five years and that some folk have already been evicted to make way for Fanellan – even though it has not yet got Highland Council planning permission.

Locals believe it is already a done deal. That’s why their packed-out Saturday meeting urged MSPs and councillors to back a national planning enquiry commission that will assess the whole cumulative impact of energy developments, while a pause is placed on all major applications until a national energy policy and economic impact assessment are in place.

Will that happen? One thing’s for sure, local campaigners won’t quit, though many are giving up on the bona fides of the Scottish Government and SNP.

Kirkhill and Bunchrew Community Council said: “Since 2019, Scotland has produced significantly more wind energy than required domestically.

“Despite this surplus, renewable infrastructure continues to target the Highlands, sterilising vast swathes of land including vital peatlands, forestry and farmland.

“We currently have amongst the highest electricity prices in Europe.”

James Duncan from Strathdearn Community Council, says: “At this very moment, we have 13 wind farms surrounding our community, with another six in the pipeline, bringing the total to 19 wind farms in our beautiful landscape.

“When complete, our wee glen – 22 miles long and six miles wide – will produce enough power to run 70% of all housing in Scotland while we pay more for our energy than anywhere in Europe and watch almost helplessly while our beautiful flora and fauna are irreparably damaged.”

It’s ironic. Some communities like Applecross haven’t got a grid connection large enough to export energy from a tiny community hydro – and were rejoicing in the news there will finally be an upgrade. While other communities in Skye and Lochalsh – part of the same grid upgrade – are steeling themselves for the same welter of wind farms, pylons and substations experienced now by the super-grid-connected east coast.

If this sounds nimbyish and planet-harming, consider this. Scotland is self-sufficient in wind energy. Highland communities are being paid buttons to tolerate epic energy extraction whilst paying some of the highest energy bills in Europe. And before the usual suspects weigh in to say the unit price is higher in Wales – also shameful – it can be 10 degrees cooler than the Scottish central belt in Thurso.

I was there in May, passing through a sweltering Aviemore on 25 degrees to find it was 11 degrees in Thurso, so my friends hadn’t switched off their central heating once. Furthermore, there are about as many long-term local jobs in wind farms as locals working on the Traitors film set near Ardross Castle – next to none. And locals would like to know why SSEN chose a remote hard-to-reach inland location for its massive converter station instead of a brownfield site near the coast.

Is there a plan and how do locals have ANY say in the just transition? Surely that is a fair question.

According to Rhys Stanwix, who spent 25 years working for SSE in Perth and now advises Energy Scotland: “The whole situation is ridiculous – lucrative UK Government contracts for even more wind farms that we don’t want and can’t cope with anyway, ruining local communities, who are compensated mere buttons to have their countryside ruined so England can reach net zero (as we are nearly there).

“The Scottish Government controls the planning process and could simply reject new proposals until some sense is made, but they choose not to.

“The crunch will come later this summer when Ed Miliband announces the next auction round of renewable contracts, which is likely to allow projects without planning permission for the first time, the inference being that planning will be just nodded through by the SNP.

“This could be disastrous for Scottish communities, who will have no say in large wind farms or the grid and battery farms that inevitably follow.

“I agree totally that the Scottish Government should announce a pause in consents until we have a reality check.”

So, in the name of a JUST transition, will that happen?