Construction has begun on the 322 MW Whitelee Windfarm, located across 55 km2 of open moorland on Eaglesham Moor, south of Glasgow in Scotland, which will become Europe's largest onshore wind farm when commissioned in 2009.
The £300 million ($585 million) 140 turbine project, under development by local utility company Scottish Power, was launched by UK trade and industry secretary Alistair Darling.
The UK government has also begun a consultation process on achieving 20% of the country’s electricity generation from renewables by 2020. A key question in the consultation is whether the most effective way of increasing the amount of clean energy is by the ‘banding’ of the Renewables Obligation (RO) for different types of renewable energy giving a greater economic incentive for emerging technologies such as offshore wind and biomass.
Commenting on the consultation, Darling said: “There is no doubt that reaching 20% will be tough. It means we must get more power from offshore wind farms and other emerging technologies like biomass and wave and tidal, while maximising the contribution from those technologies that are already being deployed.
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