ScottishPower Renewables’ Hagshaw Hill wind farm in South Lanarkshire is being decommissioned ahead of upgrade works next year.
The 16MW site has been operational since 1995 and has generated over 895MWh since it was commissioned.
The site will be replaced with 14 new turbines with a 79MW capacity, meaning it will produce five times more electricity than previously from just over half the number of turbines.
The project is part of ScottishPower Renewables’ work to maximise the efficiency of its existing sites by upgrading older turbines with new, more powerful and efficient ones.
Barry Carruthers, onshore managing director at ScottishPower Renewables, said: “A number of our windfarms, like many across the UK, are starting to come to the end of their operational life. But repowering allows us to make these windfarms, sites we know can deliver the green, zero carbon electricity we need to reach Net Zero, more efficient and maximise the power we are getting from them.”
A number of our windfarms, like many across the UK, are starting to come to the end of their operational life. But #repowering allows us to make these windfarms more efficient and maximise the power we are getting from them. Hagshaw Hill is a great example of this💫⬇️ pic.twitter.com/PR9EsL887N
— ScottishPower Renewables (@SPRenewables) July 13, 2023
“Hagshaw Hill is a great example of this. We’ve worked in this area for almost 30 years, we know how good this site is and now we’ll be able to produce enough electricity to power almost 61,000 homes each year – almost half the homes in South Lanarkshire.”
“Repowering is critical to achieving Net Zero ambitions, but we need to be able to do it faster than current legislation allows. We know these sites, we know how to look after them and we know how much more they can deliver for the UK if we can repower them fast enough,” Carruthers added.
The repowering works will create over 100 jobs at peak times, with Scottish company Forsyth of Denny winning the contract to decommission the site.
ScottishPower Renewables say they have shared over £55 million in community benefits across sites near its wind farms, and hope to provide an enhanced community benefit package with the repowered Hagshaw Hill site.
