Please reach us at info@cashwig.org if you cannot find an answer to your question or you have information that you think we should know.
Set to take place on Wednesday 9th ( Clatt Village Hall) and Thursday 10th October Howe Trinity Church Hall, Alford both between 3pm - 8pm.
The CaSHWIG team have compiled a number possible questions that visitors might wish to ask.
Selection of Possible Questions for Force 9 and EDF
Plans for a huge new wind mast at the Correen Hills, designed as a precursor to a wind farm, have sparked outrage among rural Aberdeenshire residents.
EDF Renewables operates a number of wind farms across the UK, and wants to add another at the beauty spot north of Alford.
The company says the Correen Hills mast, which would be 20m bigger than Big Ben, could set the stage for a possible 10 turbines being erected.
The full article is the Press & Journal
Windfarm operators in Scotland have been paid more than £205 million to turn OFF their turbines this year, shock new figures have revealed.
The massive payouts, which are made when electricity from turbines cannot be used or the wind is too strong, are on track to reach record levels this year with more than £45million of taxpayers’ cash paid out this month alone.
It comes as nearly one million OAPs living in Scotland prepare to lose their winter fuel payment following a major U-turn by the SNP government.
Read more on this story at the Daily Mail website
The recent success at a public meeting at Tullynessle Hall in June has inspired the team at CaSHWIG to repeat the exercise at Clatt on July 16th and at Kennethmont on July 24th.
Over 50 people attended at Tullynessle and it is clear that many people in our community are not aware of the EDF plans to develop the site on the Coreen Hills.
Venues, dates and times available on this link below. Please share.
Fred Olsen Renewables has decided not to progress with the development of a wind farm in Scotland.
The decision concerns the Hearthstanes wind farm, located on the Menzion area of Hearthstanes Estate, approximately 3km south of Tweedsmuir village in the Scottish Borders.
Fred Olsen Renewables had been engaging the local community about proposals to develop Hearthstanes wind farm since early 2023.
The plans would have included around eight turbines up to 200 metre to tip, generating over 50MW of electricity and delivering almost £9m in community benefit over the project lifespan.
Full Story:
https://www.renews.biz/94070/fred-olsen-renewables-halts-scottish-wind-project/
The enquiry by SSE into this land slip will establish why the event happened during the construction phase of this windfarm on Shetland. It's a blessing that no people or homes were in it's path.
Viking Wind Farm is a large on-shore wind farm under construction in the Shetland Islands which is being developed by Viking Energy, a partnership between Shetland Islands Council and SSE plc. When complete, it will have a generation capacity of 443 MW.
View the BBC video content Below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-68978378
They have become a familiar and striking sight on the Scottish Borders landscape over the past few months.
Giant turbine blades are being slowly transported through the region to the Pines Burn wind farm about five miles (8km) south of Hawick.
In order to shorten the length of the load, special blade lifters are used for the final stretch of their journey from St Boswells to the construction site However, their voyage has hit a string of problems as they tackle rural roads and the vagaries of the Scottish winter.
View More Below:
Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, has made a speech in Holyrood highlighting the dangers of building large scale industrial wind farms across rural communities.
View Speech:
Contact Alexander Burnett:
https://www.parliament.scot/msps/current-and-previous-msps/alexander-burnett
The result of windfarm generating capacity being much greater than transmission capacity and/or need is that windfarm owners were paid £275.3million of consumers money to NOT produce electricity. The planning approvals, applications and proposals in scoping will create more capacity leading to higher consumer bills.
Static wind turbines in the Highlands cost consumers nearly £68 million in 2023.
They accounted for more than one-quarter of all Scottish wind farms receiving “constraint” payments for zero energy output, new figures show.
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), a lion’s share of such payments to UK wind energy suppliers found its way north of the border last year, of the £307.2m total for the whole of Britain, the National Grid Electricity System Operator (National Grid ESO) paid a record £275.3m to a total of 86 Scottish generators.
Read More Below:
Many communities are concerned about the apparent deficit in the democratic representation in the process of approving onshore windfarms.
This petition is calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase the ability of communities to influence planning decisions for onshore windfarms by—
Read More Below:
If plans for new windfarms, and extensions to existing windfarms are approved, a rural community, located in a fine example of Scottish countryside will be turned into an industrial windfarm.
This will permanently change the character of this area, and will undermine years of efforts to repopulate this are with sympathetic attractions and work opportunities.
Local resident Virginia Irvine-Fortescue said: “The communities that live around and in the Cabrach have done their duty. We have reached saturation point with what we can use with our weather, with the turbines, but at the same time we must also try to live with this – the noise. The fact that we are also losing what people come to the Cabrach for, which is the beauty. That’s all we can offer in this part of the world, the unbelievable beauty.”
Read More Below:
The Dutch Government has commissioned a study into the possibility of harmful effects to the environment and humans from the chemicals eroded from the blades of wind turbines.
https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/offshore-wind-turbines-coating-potentially-harmful-to-environment
Thanks to one of our members who has forwarded a copy of a letter from the MOD to the council regarding the erection of the meteorological mast on the Correen Hill, it can be viewed by clicking this web address https://upa.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/online-applications/files/D26C22EF803750B10031E0C2FEF7FBE2/pdf/APP_2024_0036-MOD-10907507.pdf
A Scottish wind farm owned by energy company EDF will pay £5.5 million into a fund designed to help vulnerable customers after regulator Ofgem found that it had overcharged the grid. for the full story......
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24160571.dorenell-wind-farm-pay-5-5m-overcharging-grid/
A list of the recent Energy Consent Unit decisions regarding applications to develop onshore windfarms. Show List
You can view all the wind turbine proposals that have been submitted since August 2003 on website of Aberdeenshire Council. Wind turbine applications - Aberdeenshire Council
A relatively large document that looks at the supply chain and overall Scotland wide economic benefits from the renewable energy sector.
Scotland's Renewable Energy Industry: Supply Chain Impact Statement 2022/23 (scottishrenewables.com)
Details the overall benefits to Scotland of the renewable energy sector to Scotland as a whole. Contains no specifics that address the proposed development of the Correen Hills
The-Economic-Impact-of-Scotlands-Renewable-Energy-Sector1-1.pdf (fraserofallander.org)
The Scottish Government Wind Sector Deal is medium length document which lays out the way the Scottish Government and the wind sector will collaboratively work together to develop the onshore wind sector in Scotland. As this is a country wide document it short of data and specifics.
An accompanying document has been prepared to summarise statements in this deal that are felt to be particularly relevant to the proposal to develop a windfarm on the Correen Hills next to the Suie Road.
Add the attached document
https://www.gov.scot/publications/onshore-wind-sector-deal-scotland