Viking Wind farm
Scale: Approximately 150 turbines with up to 550MW capacity.
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 £600m
Cable to mainland UK ("the interconnector") £500m +
Chronology
First announced September 2003.
2005 Viking Energy Ltd and SSE Generation Ltd (subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Electricity PLC) sign memorandum of understanding for joint project.
Initial planning expected 2006, then 2007, then summer 2008. By September 2008 there is still no planning application. No environmental impact assessment.
Initial public consultation March 2007. No results released!
Converter station announced 7 March 2008. No documents available.
Converter Station consultation begins 24 March Whiteness and Weisdale Hall and the NAFC Marine Centre, Scalloway on 25 March. Still no documents available at 17/3/08!
April 2008 second brochure released from Viking Energy, unlike their first offering, this is met with indifference. Many people are finding their claims and arguments no longer credible.From this point Viking Energy begin to withdraw from public debate .Shortly afterwards they (incompetently) attempt to take their website offline by removing all links on their home page. (www.vikingenergy.co.uk)
Developers
Developers: 50/50 joint Project between Viking Energy Ltd (subsidiary of Shetland Charitable Trust) and SSE Viking Ltd (subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Energy plc ). Each partner carries one vote.
900 of the 1000 shares in Viking Energy are owned by Shetland Charitable Trust. This is a community fund in trust to the people of Shetland. Remaining 100 shares are held by 4 individuals, one of whom works on Viking Energy project.
This site...
Sustainable Shetland is a campaign group opposed to very large scale wind farms in Shetland. We believe these large industrial projects are damaging to our local environment. We believe that the Viking Energy Project endangers Shetland Community Funds, and that project costs are underestimated, whilst project income grossly overestimated.
We believe that the Viking Energy proposals are everything we do not need in Shetland: they are financially risky and will damage the Shetland environment.
We want to see sustainable renewable energy projects in Shetland, and that these projects should be fit for scale, and provide real community benefit.
We aim to go beyond just being just an "anti-wind power campaign".
