West of Orkney Offshore Wind Farm

Name

West of Orkney Offshore Wind Farm

Ward

Thurso And North West Caithness

Site

Land 50KM NW Of Pennyland Primary School Trostan Road Pennyland Thurso

THC Reference

23/04930/S36

MS Reference

MS-00010561 and MS-00010559

Applicant

Offshore Wind Power Limited (OWPL)

Proposal

West of Orkney Wind Farm - Erection and operation of a offshore wind farm comprising of 125 fixed bottom wind turbines with a maximum blade tip height of 360m, cabling and associated ancillary offshore infrastructure.

Deadline

03/12/2024

Status

Under Consideration

Total capacity

2000.0 MW

Capacity turbines

2000.0 MW

Number of turbines

125.0

Height turbines

360.0 m

Comment

This is an application for a massive offshore wind farm. The turbines are twice the height of the Beatrice turbines. The turbines already built off the East coast have an impact on ecology. If turbines get built off the North West coast as well then there is no coast line left in Caithness without turbines. In particular Atlantic Salmon, endangered seabirds and aquatic mammals might be badly affected by the development. The environmental assessment submitted by the developer has been so poor that they were asked by RSPB and NatureScot to start again with their evaluation.
Another problem with this development is that they plan to bring the electricity onshore close to Dounreay from where cable trenches will go to Spittal. In Spittal two massive substations will have to be built. Since the output of this offshore wind farm is so much bigger than the production of onshore wind farms the substations needed are a mutliple of the size of existing substations. SSE then plans to put in cable trenches to Sinclair bay to finally take the electricity down south with a sub sea cable. Massive trenches will have to be cut right across Caithness even though the electricity could have been taken South in subsea cables straight from the wind farm. Rather than considering these issues in combination with the offshore wind farm, several additional applications will be submitted for these connections.

UPDATE: Additional information has been submitted a year after the original submission and less than a year after the damning objections from RSPB and NatureScot. While this might be enough time to write a new report it is hardly enough time to set up a proper study and collect any meaningful data.
It will be a while before we will get to see the response of RSPB and NatureScot to the new material submitted. In the meantime the public can also submit representations again.

Send objection to

Marine Scotland, The Highland Council

More Information Here

https://wam.highland.gov.uk/wam/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=S2EZ0XIH0HZ00
https://marine.gov.scot/node/25701