Sustainable Shetland

Sustainable Shetland is a rapidly growing campaign formed in response to the Viking Energy wind farm project in Shetland. The map to the right shows the site boundary for this proposed wind farm.

We recognise that renewables must play a part in how we live in the future, however these schemes must be fit for scale in the landscape and should be based on smaller community schemes, wind to heat etc, and a proactive energy conservation policy. With this in mind the group has adopted the name ‘Sustainable Shetland’.

The wind farm proposal

Scale: Approximately 150 turbines with up to 600MW capacity.

Turbine size: tower 90m, turbine blade diameter 110m. Total height - tip to base is 145m.

By way of comparison, the Bressay TV mast height is 70m. The Lerwick Town hall clock tower is about 22m.

Location: Shetland Islands. UK. Specific site, most of North Central mainland Shetland.

Size: Site area will be about 18 km north-south and at widest point 11 km East to West. (That's about 11 miles by 7 miles)

Area of site: 12,800 hectares (32,000) acres.

Development cost about £600m.

Cable to mainland UK ("the interconnector") £500m +

Converter station, site, about 200m x 120m. Buildings, up to 4 stories high.

Developers: 50/50 joint Project between Viking Energy Ltd(subsidiary of Shetland Charitable Trust) and SSE Viking Ltd(subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Energy). Each partner carries one vote.

Finance

Viking Energy represents half of project. Shetland Charitable Trust holds 90% of shares. 10% of remaining shares held by 4 private investors. Viking Energy share of project is about £300m. Initial capital stake is claimed to be £60m. Remainder of investment to be financed through debt, borrowing and possible debt-bond issue.

Up side:Viking Energy claim profit of £18m per year. Sustainable Shetland dispute the accuracy and validity of these claims. No project financial models have been released. It is worth noting that initial profit claims £26m in March 2007, then £18m by late 2007. At a public debate in January 2008 the project officer for Viking Energy said that profits would be about £16m. All the figures Viking Energy gave were before tax.

Down side: If the project fails, Shetland's exposure could be as high as £300m. With Charitable Trust total funds standing around £220m, this would spell financial ruin for Shetland now, and future generations to follow. It has never been spelt out where the initial £60m stake would come from. There is a danger that current charitable trust spending may have to be curtailed to finance this project.

From the point of view of community funds, this project is a reckless gamble at the expense of the environment, landscape of Shetland. Read more on the wind farm finances.

Environment

Sustainable Shetland is very concerned with:

Loss of cultural heritage landscape. The site will be visible across much of Shetland. From nearly one end of the islands to the other. At night the site will more resemble airport runways than rural hills.

Lost and damaged habitats. Plant, animal and bird and fish species within and beyond the site negatively impacted.

Peat is a carbon sink. Peat takes thousands of years to form, and actively stores and absorbs climate damaging CO2. Damaging peat on this scale releases large quantities of CO2. It is madness to damage ancient peat deposits for a so-called environmental project.

This project will create an adverse impact on the landscape of almost all of Shetland. A generation will grow up knowing nothing better than hilltops covered with wind turbines.

Miles upon miles of access roads (some up to 60 feet wide) quarries, concrete batching plants, construction and ongoing site infrastructure such as control and sub-stations, a converter station, turbine foundations and towers, will cause substantial damage on the immediate and surrounding environment.