MacHairWind Wind Farm
MachairWind wind farm has its own page on the ScottishPower Renewables web site.
These are the two introductory paragraphs.
The MacHairWind project off the coast of Islay, which could deliver 2GW of cleaner renewable energy, will make a significant contribution to tackling climate change and achieving Net Zero, with the potential to generate enough clean electricity to power over 2 million homes in Scotland.
It will also build on ScottishPower’s long-standing presence and positive track record of investing in and working with local communities and businesses across Argyll & Bute to realise the benefits of renewable energy developments.
This Google Map shows the area of the wind farm, which is to the North West of the island of Islay.
Note.
- There certainly is a large space of empty sea to the North-West of Islay.
- Glasgow is not far away.
This second Google Map shows the area to the North-East of Islay.
Note.
- Islay is in the South-West corner of the map.
- Colonsay is the smaller island to the North.
- In the North-East corner of the map the red arrow indicate Cruachan pumped hydro power station.
- In the South-East corner of the map is the Clyde Estuary, where the two nuclear power stations at Hunterston were located.
- Hunterston is also the Northern end of Western HVDC Link to North Wales.
Wikipedia says this about the relationship of the Cruachan power station and Hunterston’s nuclear stations.
Construction began in 1959 to coincide with the Hunterston A nuclear power station in Ayrshire. Cruachan uses cheap off-peak electricity generated at night to pump water to the higher reservoir, which can then be released during the day to provide power as necessary.
Now that the two nuclear stations are being decommissioned, will the MacHairWind wind farm be used to pump water to Cruachan’s higher reservoir?
Conclusion
The MacHairWind wind farm seems a well-positioned wind farm.
- It is close to Glasgow.
- It can be used in tandem with the Cruachan pumped hydro power station.
- It will have access to the Western HVDC Link to send power to the North-West of England.
Is Scotland replacing the 1.2 GW Hunterston B nuclear power station with a 2 GW wind farm, with help from Cruachan and other proposed pumped storage hydro schemes to the North of Glasgow?
It also looks like increasing the power at Cruachan from the current 440 MW to a GW, by the building of Cruachan 2 would give the area even more energy security.
The Anonymous Widower 
Given our 17GW of installed capacity is only delivering 0.92GW as of 1000 we certainly need to enlarge the geographically footprint of the turbines as high depression over the north sea are quite frequent.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | March 23, 2022 |
Agreed we need more geographical spread.
What about the Western approaches for a start. But I suppose all the second-home owners would complain.
As is happening with MacHairWind it needs to be able to store energy in times of high output. Along the East Coast, this could mean giant offshore electrolysers to create hydrogen which is then stored in depleted gas fields. Already SSE are building Keadby 2, so it can run on pure hydrogen. If we build wind farms way out to sea, then we can use redundant gas pipelines to bring the hydrogen ashore.
The future is offshore hydrogen and we could probably create around 100-200 GW, which would be more than enough for the UK. So we will export it to the Continent to replace the war criminal’s tainted gas!
Britannia will rule the winds.
Comment by AnonW | March 23, 2022 |
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