Saturday 24 October 2009

Whitelee Windfarm


This wildly over-exposed (but I quite like it) picture was taken looking up the tower of Turbine 25 at Whitelee Windfarm. This is one of 140 turbines on the site operated by Scottish Power Renewables which covers an area of 55 square kilometres and delivers up to 322MW of electrical power onto the national grid - enough to power about 150,000 average sized UK homes.

The turbine in the picture is about 90m tall, to the rotor hub and 135m to the tip of the uppermost vertical rotor. Each rotor arm is 45m in length and when the turbine is turning at its maximum speed the tip of each rotor is travelling at approximately 160kph.

Whitelee Windfarm took about three years to create and involved extensive work to preserve as much of the important local peat/moorland habitat as possible. Already, native grasses are well established and wildlife is living quite happily alongside the turbines. Indeed, over 90km of walking trails have been created across the site for the public to enjoy the natural beauty of this windy but interesting patch of land which sits about 400m above sea-level and catches winds directly off the Irish Sea.

You really should pay a visit.

3 comments:

  1. Cool shot Bruce, took me a few looks to figure it out :) Hope you're well!

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  2. Yeah great shot, a different angle on the usual sunset shots of windfarms! I actually made a video about the building of the site, over two years, covering the enviromental side. All very interesting.

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  3. Ian - good to hear from you. I was just wondering recently how you were getting on. Glad you lkiked the pic!

    Les - we must talk windfarms and the environment next time we meet.

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