A few months ago we wrote about forward thinking Aberdeenshire whose planning authority published a set of guidelines specifying the circumstances under which a wind turbine application would be granted- thus removing local politics and nimbyism from the equation.
That combined with a rich wind resource let to a somewhat inevitable “gold rush” of applications which in turn has led to the operators of local aviation RADAR systems to start objecting to all new proposals.
Community and commercial schemes alike are now being withdrawn or rejected pending the anticipated rollout of a new RADAR system to mitigate the “clutter” caused by wind turbines. This new Raytheon system is as yet still un-tested and assuming successful tests later this year, it could still be 5 years before anyone agrees to actually pay for the upgrades.
Contrast this with our recent visit to the island of Gran Canaria where we had a tour of the ACSA wind turbine factory. The airport is surrounded by hundreds of wind turbines right up to its perimeter fence and yet the commercial and military aircraft (yes there are F-18’s parked next to the runway when you land) seem to fly around quite well without bumping into anything.
How does a relatively poor little Spanish colony island afford to do something that seems almost impossible here in the UK?