Wind Farm Site

Welcome to Lochluichart Windfarm Extension II

Scotland leads the way in harnessing renewable energy sources. The Scottish Government has now committed to end Scotland’s contribution to climate change within a generation under the Climate Change Bill passed in 2019.  The landmark legislation has committed Scotland to becoming a net-zero society by 2045 – five years before the rest of the UK and in line with the advice from the government’s independent expert advisors, the UK Committee on Climate Change.

Scotland’s onshore wind capacity will more than double by 2030 under plans to help cut harmful emissions and support the energy sector’s net-zero transformation.

The Scottish Government has recently published it finalised Onshore Wind Policy Statement and confirms its ambitions for 20 Gigawatts (GW) of onshore wind power to be installed by 2030.

Ways to ensure the landscape can accommodate this are carefully chosen sites and sensitively designed developments.

As part of this goal, Boralex is investigating the potential to extend an operational wind farm site in Highland.  The site, part of the Loch Luichart Estate, is located around 18km northwest of Dingwall.

The context and background in which onshore wind energy schemes in the UK must be developed changed dramatically in 2015, however is looking more positive once again. The Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROC’s) mechanism has now been closed and its replacement, the Contract for Difference (CfD), was halted for onshore wind energy developments after only one round of support.  However in early 2020, the UK Government announced that onshore wind would once more be eligible to bid in to future rounds of CfD, but all developers must still ensure that all new onshore wind farm developments in the UK are financially viable on a ‘zero-subsidy’ basis, as CfD is an auction process and not all projects will be successful.  As a consequence, only those onshore wind farms utilising state of the art wind turbine technology, built in the best locations, with high wind speeds and affordable grid and site access routes will be viable in this new and challenging operating environment.

Turbine manufacturers have recognised this new reality, which is not only the case in the UK, but can be seen around the world. As such, manufacturers are working on optimising the generation potential of turbines; by increasing rotor diameters and tip heights and improving the efficiency of generators, to eke out increased performance while at the same time decreasing the unit cost of energy generated.

Community consultation

We are keen to work with the local community. This website aims to share information about the project throughout its development and to invite members of the community to get in touch. We would be delighted to hear from you and value your opinion.  You can email us directly on [email protected]  Our recent online consultation material from December 2020 is available to view and download on the Downloads page.

For all submitted documentation on the wind farm proposal, please visit the Downloads page.