What England onshore wind can learn from Scotland

Onshore wind is set to enter a new golden age in England. In July, chancellor Rachel Reeves drew a line under what she said were “absurd” restrictions on onshore wind developments, in a bid to help the new Labour government meet a pledge of doubling capacity by 2030. 

This is a bold move that has been long awaited by the renewables industry. But in Scotland the policy shift barely merited a raise of the eyebrows. While English onshore wind has been almost completely paralysed under 16 years of Conservative government, north of the border it has been business as usual. 

Taking a more proactive attitude towards project planning has allowed Scotland to get an almost 63% share of its electricity from low-cost, fully renewable onshore wind by the third quarter of 2023. 

Onshore wind is the biggest source of renewable energy in Scotland, helping the nation achieve an almost completely carbon-free grid. As the rest of the UK seeks to reach similar levels of grid decarbonisation, are there lessons that Whitehall can learn from Holyrood? 

Based on Pacific Green’s experience with onshore wind energy in Scotland, we believe there are at least three learnings the Labour government might want to consider.

The first is that any major buildout of onshore wind will require significant upgrades to a grid that was never designed to take electricity from multiple remote locations and transport it to often-distant load centres. 

Stakeholders such as National Grid are aware of this need, but from a government perspective grid modernisation will require a centralisation of decision making so action can be taken in a more efficient and streamlined fashion, with less likelihood of work being held up by local administration interests.

A second lesson from Scotland is that if climate change is going to be treated as a global emergency—which it is—then onshore wind needs to be given an appropriate level of priority. 

This means onshore wind farms should be recognised for their critical place in achieving the country’s climate change targets—and given the appropriate national planning policy support to encourage deployment delivery. 

‘The right development in the right place’ remains an important central principle of the planning system, and community voices should be heard. However, despite the Conservative administration’s ambitious climate change targets a handful of objections was previously sufficient to derail any onshore wind applications.

This created, in effect, a moratorium for the industry, which clearly cannot continue to be the case if revised ambitions for climate change targets are to be met in the timescales required. The UK government’s introduction of a presumption in favour of sustainable development is a move in the right direction. 

This is like the terms contained within the Scottish Planning Policy 2014, which subsequently evolved to a much more detailed support for strategic renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure in the Scottish government’s most recent national policy framework.

Third, and linked to the two lessons above, there needs to be a better appreciation of the benefits that onshore wind can bring. Local communities may fear that prioritising grid upgrades and wind farms will mean their concerns go unheard, which is a legitimate concern. 

However, much of the reason for England’s sluggish onshore wind growth has been down to a lack of understanding of the true pros and cons of the technology, along with an overzealous protection of community interests.

In Scotland, which has in excess of 9.5 GW of onshore wind capacity—more than three times the amount in England, for less than a tenth of the population—communities have a better handle on the advantages of the technology.

Instead of thinking of onshore wind solely in terms of sustainability—which can lead to positive perceptions overall without dispelling not-in-my-backyard attitudes—or the potential for limited payouts or community support, it is important to recognise the industry as a motor for economic growth and job opportunities, often in rural locations. 

This makes the Scottish population more supportive of the technology, with 70% of Scots in a 2021 survey agreeing that the local planning system should broadly encourage the building of renewable energy projects such as onshore wind, with only 8% opposed. 

Notably, support was slightly higher among people who lived within five miles of a turbine and 76% of the Scottish public agreed that the Government should work proactively with the onshore wind industry to boost jobs and local business opportunities.

The irony is that today, with clear evidence of a worsening climate crisis, support for onshore wind is soaring across the rest of the UK as well. 

In July 2024, a day before the general election, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero published its Public Attitudes Tracker, a nationally representative annual survey of adults in the UK that tracks public awareness, attitudes and behaviours relating to the Department’s policies.

Among its findings was the fact that overall support for onshore wind was highest not in Scotland but in the West Midlands (with an 84% approval rating), followed by the South East (82%), South West (80%) and Yorkshire and Humberside (79%).

Overall, 43% of people said they would be “very” (20%) or “fairly” (23%) happy for an onshore wind farm to be constructed in their local area, which the Department said was consistent with polls carried out in Spring 2022 and 2023. 

Only 13% of respondents said they would be unhappy with such a decision, with 28% not minding either way.

Under previous planning laws in England, this 13% of detractors would be enough to put the brakes on new projects, stymieing the chances of infrastructure development apparently desired by a large portion of the UK population. 

How can Pacific Green help develop onshore wind in the UK?

With a change of mindset, the government should be able to satisfy the clean energy desires of a greater proportion of the citizenship. And the Scottish experience suggests that as onshore wind expands, so will acceptance of the technology.  

The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero’s research signals that Labour’s quest to kick-start UK onshore wind development outside Scotland might not be hard to achieve provided planning and grid access issues are sorted out in a timely fashion. 

The private sector will naturally have a role to play, and at Pacific Green we are already working to engage with landowners and land agents on identifying potentially suitable sites for development. 

We have also actively engaged in the UK Government’s consultation on proposed changes to planning policy, aimed at being more supportive to the delivery of onshore wind development in England.

While much of Labour’s focus is on developing new plants, we also see a significant opportunity in repowering existing wind farms with new, more efficient turbines. 

This will allow as much or more energy to be delivered using fewer wind turbines, potentially lessening the impact of projects and improving the benefits to communities and the nation. Plus we can draw upon our experience in battery storage to further enhance the efficiency and value of onshore wind assets.

The aim is not only to give Britons access to more sustainable, low-cost energy, but also to make onshore wind something that the whole of the UK can be proud of—as it has been in Scotland for years.