Shetland stirred by giant Viking wind farm plan

Severin Carrell
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 May 2009 20.17 BST

Shetland
For more than 30 years, life on Shetland has been sweet. Residents enjoy state of the art leisure centres, smooth roads and luxurious old people's homes the envy of every other islander in Scotland.
Thanks to a unique deal brokered in 1973 over the building of the Sullom Voe oil terminal, life on Britain's most northerly and weather-battered island group has been cushioned by an oil fund. For every barrel, Shetland levied a small fee: £200m has been spent improving the lives of its 22,000 residents, and the islands' trust still has £180m in reserve.
The oil money has stopped flowing and Shetland faces a new energy controversy which divides its close-knit population: the prospect of hosting Europe's largest onshore wind farm, a 600MW project that could generate a fifth of Scotland's entire electricity needs.
Scottish ministers have received the detailed planning application for the Viking wind farm project, a vast scheme involving 150 turbines over 12,800 hectares, which would dominate the desolate moors and hills of Shetland's main island.
The application was submitted as Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, that the biggest wind farm so far built in Europe, at Whitelee, south of Glasgow, would expand again. The 322MW scheme, already large enough to meet Glasgow's electricity needs, will increase to 452MW.
Supporters of Shetland's proposal argue that the islands have prospered by exploiting North Sea oil, yet use diesel shipped in by tanker to fuel their largest power station, even though the islands have the strongest and most consistent winds in Europe.
Proof of Shetland's potential comes from a modest wind turbine called Betsy. One of five small turbines on Shetland's only wind farm, the 660 kilowatt machine is believed to be the world's most efficient wind turbine, reaching between 52% and 59% of its maximum potential output, double the average of most on the British mainland.
The developers claim the Viking wind farm, a joint venture between the Shetland Islands Trust and the utility company Scottish and Southern Energy, could earn Shetland up to £37m a year in profits, investment and wages.
The Sullom Voe oil deal ended in 2000, and with oil landings there now half their peak level, the terminal's economic value is declining. Shetland's unemployment rate is currently 2.4%, nearly half Scotland's average, while wages match the Scottish average and health spending of nearly £2,000 a head is £200 more than average.
Without the Viking project, the islands will rely on fishing, tourism, the public sector and a fast diminishing oil fund, said David Thomson, Viking Energy's project officer.
"Shetland is a fragile economy and we have to take every opportunity we can to diversify the economy. This is one of those very rare circumstances when something we can do is both good for Shetland but also for the rest of the nation. It's a win-win scenario."
That is disputed. More than 2,500 of Shetland's 22,000 residents have signed a petition opposing the project; arguing that the 145 metre-high turbines (475ft), substations, quarries and 62 miles of access roads, would dominate the main island's desolate hills and moors, devastating the deep peat bog that carpets much of the interior.
Billy Fox, the chairman of Sustainable Shetland, argues that the scheme is too large, too damaging and too risky for such a small island. "Shetland has just 2% of Scotland's land area, but you're looking at putting the largest onshore wind farm in Europe on it, to supply 20% of Scotland's electricity supply. It's simply out of all proportion," he said.
The islands needed much smaller, local wind farms and the scheme could devastate the peat bogs which themselves store significant amounts of carbon dioxide, he said, and releasing that into the atmosphere contradicted the objective of combating climate change.
"There's no denying the wind energy efficiency factor on Shetland is higher than anywhere else in the UK," he said. "But it all comes down to scale. This will have a huge effect on the landscape.
"This isn't a nimby situation. We're not against renewables per se, but we want to see them fit for scale, fit for purpose. This is simply too large. The jury really is out on whether large scale wind farms are the answer to our carbon emissions anyway.
"The oil industry won't go away for several decades, but the arguments about wind generation as a means of combating global warming, the jury is still out on that."