The Curent Windfarm Proposal

The current Bachan Burn Wind Farm proposal is from Brookfield Renewables (UK) Ltd. for the construction of 17 wind turbines, each 119m (390 ft) high, with a total generating capacity of about 51 megawatts, to be built on approximately 43 hectares of Forestry Commission land on the hill-tops above Dunoon. (See the Maps page of this website for details.)

It is basically the same as the earlier proposal (2013) by PNE Wind UK. In mid-2015 Brookfield Asset Management, a large Canadian-based multinational, bought PNE Wind’s entire UK project pipeline portfolio and staff, which then became Brookfield
Renewables (UK) Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management.

In Scotland, applications for the construction, extension and operation of electricity generating stations with a capacity in excess of 50 megawatts must be made to the Scottish Ministers. (These are called Section 36 applications in reference to the relevant part of the Energy Act 1989.) The Scottish Government changed the law in
this way specifically to remove decision-making power from local authorities, who were perceived as too responsive to local opinion and hence too likely to oppose large energy developments – which in practice means large wind farm projects.

The Bachan Burn Wind Farm proposal is a Section 36 Application and is therefore administered on behalf of the Scottish Ministers by the Energy Consents Unit. At present the project Status is “pre-application”, which means that certain required documentation has been submitted but the formal application to the Scottish Ministers has not yet been made. According to the ECU web-site the Section 36 application is “expected” in the Spring of 2017.