Scotland has seen a record-breaking year for wind energy, with onshore wind farms generating over 5.5 million MWh of electricity during the first three months of this year. Wind farms across the country generated enough electricity to power over five million households. What’s more, Scotland has recently installed the world’s most powerful wind turbine, despite the opposition of US President Donald Trump because it is near his golf course.
As the first of 11 planned superstructures across Europe, the Aberdeen behemoth is so powerful that its developers claim that one rotation of its blades could power an average UK home for 24 hours.
The construction of the energy-giant comes in part of a larger plan from the Vattenfall European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, which aims to eventually produce more than 70% of domestic energy in Aberdeen. It is the first time an 8.8 MW turbine model has been deployed commercially, with the massive 164-metre rotor boasting a circumference larger than that of the London Eye.
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The figures stand in stark contrast to claims made in a letter to the then First Minister Alex Salmond by future President Donald Trump. In the letter, the business tycoon and reality TV star hit out at the construction of such wind turbines, saying “Don’t destroy your coastlines and your countryside with the monstrous turbines. Your country will become a third world wasteland that global investors will avoid.”
The advice has clearly been disregarded by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who opened the world’s first floating wind farm off the coast of Aberdeen at a cost of £210 million as part of the Hywind Scotland Pilot Park Project in late 2017.