The planning application being submitted for Grayside Wind Farm is being progressed by the landowners and on land within their control. There is no adjacent land under their control which would allow an extension to be undertaken and, as stated above, the current layout has been informed by environmental and ground constraints. The current layout is for up to 21 turbines. Where wind farms which have been consented and then varied to increase the approved heights; this is due to the change in wind farm subsidies making smaller scale heights unviable. This project has been designed with the knowledge that there are no subsidies available for onshore wind and so there is no reason for a tip height increase to be progressed in future.
The landowners have made a written commitment that the scheme will not be extended in the future:
“As discussed during the public exhibitions (on zoom on the 17th and 18th of February) the landowers at Grayside have no plans to extend the proposed windfarm. The Grayside proposal currently being discussed is not Phase 1 of a wider development on their land.
The Scoping Layout had 27 turbines of up to 200m tip height. Two were dropped just before the public exhibitions (though the exhibitions still had the 27 turbine layout). The largest turbine which fits within this envelope is the Enercon E-126 which has a capacity of up to 7.58MW. If 25 of these were installed, the capacity at the site would be 189.5MW.
The landowners undertake that the Grayside development will have an installed capacity not greater than 189.5MW.”