Environmentalists have welcomed the submission of a planning application to install two 'floating' wind turbines in the seas off the Dounreay nuclear plant, now being decommissioned.
The turbines would be fixed on to a single semi-submersible platform, 3.7 miles off the Caithness coast in the waters of the Pentland Firth. They would have a total capacity of eight to 12 megawatts. A subsea cable being would have to be laid and a substation built onshore.
Swedish company Hexicon appointed WS Atkins as its engineering partner last year to help design the demonstrator project. Another company Dounreay Tri, has been formed to guide the project through the planning process. The application is now with Scottish Ministers.
It is hoped to have the turbines commissioned and connected to the grid by 2018.
WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said:
"This proposal will of course have to go through all the usual planning processes. However, successfully developing floating turbines could enable Scotland and other nations to secure even more clean power from offshore wind in the future.
"There's also something quite symbolic in the fact that clean renewable electricity might one day be being generated within a stone's throw of the failed and polluting nuclear reactor site at Dounreay.
"While nuclear power and fossils fuels should be consigned to history, with the right political support for offshore wind and other technologies, Scotland is well placed to become the EU's first fully renewable electricity nation. This is an aspiration we hope the Scottish Government will aim for its forthcoming energy strategy."
Meanwhile in May it was confirmed the construction of the world’s largest floating wind farm would begin off the Aberdeenshire coast, following the Crown Estate granting a lease to the Norwegian multinational oil and gas company Statoil.
It is scheduled to begin generating electricity by the end of next year.
The Hywind project will see five 6MW turbines deployed in deeper water than any previous offshore wind turbines around the UK coast. They will be at a site called Buchan Deep, and the closest turbine to the shore will be less than 16 miles from Peterhead.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel