(Photo: ScottishPower’s Whitelee wind farm. Credit: Graeme Maclean, Flickr Creative Commons)[/caption]
ScottishPower became the first integrated energy company in the United Kingdom to completely exit coal and gas generation. The company sold its remaining traditional gas-fired power stations to Drax Group last week in order to focus entirely on renewables.
Wind capacity has long been a focus for ScottishPower, which is part of Iberdrola Group, a global energy company that has an operating portfolio of over 14,000 MW of wind power. Following the sale to Drax, 100% of the electricity for the company is generated from wind power. The Whitelee wind farm located on Eaglesham Moor outside of Glasgow has 215 turbines that can generate up to 539 MW, making it the UK’s largest onshore wind facility.
In the UK, the energy company has an offshore wind power pipeline of 2,900 MW in addition to the 714 MW being constructed for the East Anglia One project. ScottishPower says they have a pipeline of future wind project capable of generating more than 3,000 MW. They are investing $6.8 billion (£5.2 billion) in renewables and building smart grids over the next four years to help make electricity cleaner and more affordable.
“We need to invest in the cheapest forms of energy — that’s onshore wind, offshore wind, it’s going to be solar — and that will help drive down the cost of energy,” ScottishPower CEO Keith Anderson told the Guardian’s Adam Vaughan.
Solar farms around the UK have historically been built by smaller energy firms and community groups, Vaughan wrote, so a player like ScottishPower entering the market could cause a major shake-up.
“The solar market has had difficulties over the last wee while,” Anderson told the news outlet. “But you look at where the technology cost is getting to, and the possibilities of integrating it with wind...how it balances from season to season wind and solar output, and we see a good opportunity there for further investment.”
Last year the cost of onshore wind energy development became competitive with gas in the United Kingdom, according to a study ScottishPower commissioned. Wind technology had become so affordable that developers could build an onshore wind farm for the same price as a new gas power station.
ScottishPower’s retail business serves approximately 5.1 million customers in the United Kingdom.
