In June 2008, ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) was granted consent by the Scottish Government for the Arecleoch Windfarm, which has been constructed and is now in operation. Arecleoch Windfarm is located in forested areas southwest of Barrhill in South Ayrshire. In March 2010 SPR submitted an application to the Scottish Government to build and operate a further windfarm to be known as Kilgallioch (Arecleoch Phase 2), located in South Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway.

The proposed Kilgallioch windfarm is located on land 5km to the south of Barrhill, 5km to the northeast of New Luce and 11km to the northwest of Kirkcowan. Please see the site location plan here. Early investigations identified this area as a good site for the harvesting of renewable energy and SPR has conducted a thorough Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to evaluate potential environmental effects associated with the construction, operation and decommissioning of the windfarm.

SPR held a first round of public information days in June 2009 in the communities of Barrhill, New Luce and Kirkcowan, to provide information regarding the proposed windfarm to local residents, and to gain feedback on the proposals.

In March 2010, SPR applied to build and operate a windfarm consisting of 132 turbines with a total site generating capacity of up to 396 MegaWatts (MW), enough clean green energy to power up to approximately 200,000 homes. The details of this application were presented at a second round of Public Information Days held in April 2010.

We have since refined our proposals to take into account, where possible, feedback received as a result of ongoing consultation with statutory consultees, members of the public and other stakeholders. We have made some changes to our proposals to ensure they truly offer a best fit for the area, balancing the site's potential to deliver renewable energy benefits with environmental, technical and community considerations. In doing so we have removed 33 turbines from our original proposal, reducing turbine numbers from 132 to 99, and have reduced the maximum tip height of two turbines in the southwest of the site from 146.5 metres to 125 metres. This 25% reduction in turbines has led to a similar reduction in length of access tracks, number of watercourse crossings etc. associated with these turbine deletions. A layout plan of the proposed windfarm can be viewed here.

We have now produced an ‘Addendum' document which explains the changes we've made to the layout, provides any further information or clarification requested by consultees since the original application was submitted and updates the relevant assessments in light of the changes made. This document was submitted to the Scottish Government on 20 January 2012.

The scale of the wind turbines proposed has not been established but our proposals include turbines with a total tip height of up to 146.5m with two turbines, in the southwest of the site, reduced to a maximum tip height of 125m . The final choice of turbine will be the subject of a selection process considering technical and commercial aspects of the turbine and would be based on turbine models commercially available at the time of construction.

SPR anticipate operating for 25 years and therefore, within the detail of our Section 36 planning application, we make reference to a 25 year operational life. We ensure that the timeframe requested for planning permission also covers the time required to construct and eventually decommission the site.

The Non Technical Summary of the Addendum can be downloaded here and a more informal Project Summary Document can be downloaded here.

SPR will be holding further public information days and the details of the times and locations of these can be found on the ‘News' page of this website where you can also find details of when the Addendum was submitted, where you can view the document and how members of the public can make their representations to the Scottish Government.

Why this is a good area for a windfarm

This is a good area for windfarm development due to a number of factors, including the following:

• It has a good wind resource;
• It is a large site potentially giving significant benefits in terms of generating electricity and reducing climate change emissions;
• It is accessible by construction traffic and for turbine deliveries;
• Grid capacity is available nearby;
• It is partially located within ‘Areas of Search for Large Scale Windfarms' in the Ayrshire Joint Structure Plan (approved November 2007); and
• It is largely located within an ‘Area of Search for Large Scale Wind Energy Development'' in the Dumfries & Galloway Interim Planning policy (IPP) Wind Energy Development (Draft 2011).