Scotland’s first commercial windfarm to be repowered

Scotland’s first ever commercial windfarm has been powered down in preparation for the site to be repowered.

The Hagshaw Hill windfarm in Douglas, South Lanarkshire, opened in 1995 and has generated more than 895 mega watt hours (MWh) of electricity during its 28-year-lifespan.

But now, the windfarm will be decommissioned and 14 new wind turbines will be installed with a combined capacity of 79MW.

Once the process of repowering has been completed, the windfarm will be capable of producing five times the amount of clean green energy from just half of the number of turbines.

Barry Carruthers, onshore managing director at ScottishPower Renewables, explains: “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.

“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.”

The project is expected to maintain over 100 jobs and bring more opportunities during decommissioning for the supply chain.

Work is under way to disassemble the turbines and prepare the land.