Below is a recent post from the Save Our Hills Facebook page which makes interesting reading and shows the smoke and mirrors approach used by windfarm developers. Hill of fare windfarm
Today we are talking about the carbon footprint of the Hill of Fare windfarm. This is the carbon emitted due to the construction of the turbines, roads, borrow pits, etc. and includes carbon losses due to peat removal and tree feeling.
Using the Scottish Government’s Carbon Calculator, RES has calculated that the carbon emitted by building the Hill of Fare windfarm amounts to some 210,637 tonnes equivalent of CO2, reducing to 192,477 after proposed enhancement of the site (specifically improving degraded bogs, felled forestry, restoration of peat from borrow pits and drainage).
This is a very large number due to the amount of pristine peat removed. We are looking into RES’ data and assumptions to make sure that this is correct, but this is not easy, so we are taking these figures at face value.
Once windfarms are in operation they deliver carbon-free electricity and displace carbon emissions which would otherwise result from energy generation by fossil fuels (usually gas). The ‘carbon payback’ time is a standard way to estimate how long the wind farm will take to offset the carbon emitted because of its construction and operation.
RES claim a ‘carbon payback’ time of 2.8 years for this windfarm, assuming the grid mix of today (44% fossil fuels) remaining constant for its 50 year lifetime.
However, the grid mix is de-carbonising rapidly as more and more windfarms are brought onstream displacing fossil fuels. We have sourced grid mix data for 2024-2029 from UK Gov Annex B: Carbon dioxide emissions by source (revised 10 March 2023), and 2030-2040 from UK Gov BERR net zero and the Power Sector Scenarios (February 2022).
These indicate a rapid decline in fossil fuels in the grid mix. The UK Dept of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BERR) states ‘overtime, low carbon generation increases. In all four scenarios, from 2035 onwards, low carbon generation makes up more than 99% of domestic generation. In 2030, low carbon generation is 90-93% of domestic generation.’
Although there is some uncertainty around these figures, the trends are clear as more and more windfarms start generating low carbon electricity.
If approved, we estimate that the Hill of Fare windfarm will start generating electricity around 2029, by which time the grid mix will be around 10% fossil fuels. By 2035 this is predicted to fall to around 1% and to remain at that level. Using these assumptions, we have modelled the Hill of Fare windfarm carbon payback period.
We conclude that it will NEVER payback the carbon generated in construction and removal of peat and trees. Overall, the windfarm is a carbon source and does not contribute to getting to net zero. The main reason for this is the removal of undegraded peat which results in a high carbon footprint.
Windfarms that involve destroying a lot of peat should never be built. The following published papers make the same conclusions:
– Smith et al., 2012, ‘Avoid constructing windfarms on peat’, https://www.nature.com/articles/489033d
– Smith et al., 2014, ‘Wind farms on undegraded peatlands are unlikely to reduce future carbon emissions’, https://www.sciencedirect.com/…/abs/pii/S0301421513010896
– Thomson et al., 2015 ‘Life cycle costs and Carbon Emissions of Onshore Wind Power’, https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/…/Main_Report_Life_Cycle…
Save Straiton for Scotland 