UK Onshore Wind Developers Call for Clarity on 2035 Scottish Capacity Cap

A group of 13 onshore wind developers has called on the UK government to clarify its plans for onshore wind capacity in Scotland as part of the Clean Power Action Plan. In an open letter to UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the developers expressed concerns about a potential “de-facto ban” on Scottish onshore wind after 2030, urging for an increase in the permitted capacity cap. The letter, signed by developers including Low Carbon, OnPath, EDP Renewables, Muirhall Energy, and Voltalia, highlights the proposed cap of 700MW for additional Scottish onshore wind capacity between 2031 and 2035. The signatories warned that the current plan would lead to a 90% reduction in the rate of onshore wind installations post-2030, severely limiting new projects. “Currently, the cap in the Plan will allow only 700MW of additional Scottish onshore wind capacity to connect between 2031 and 2035,” the letter stated. “This would result in a decrease in the rate of installations allowed after 2030 of over 90%, and amounts to a de-facto ban on Scottish onshore wind post-2030.” The developers also raised concerns about the impact on projects that have already submitted planning applications, many of which could be removed from the grid queue due to the low capacity cap. They emphasized that this could lead to a loss of hundreds of millions of pounds in committed or spent investment. “The 2035 cap on Scottish onshore wind not only risks hundreds of millions of pounds of investment that has already been committed to or spent on developing projects, it would switch off billions of pounds of planned investment and would undermine the government’s ultimate goal of speeding up the deployment of clean power,” the letter continued. The developers are calling for the government to revise the 2035 cap before May 2025. They argue that without such a revision, many well-advanced projects that are on track to deliver by 2030 will be excluded from the grid. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the National Grid ESO (NESO) have indicated that the cap may be revisited in the upcoming Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP), due for publication in the fourth quarter of 2026. However, developers warned that the timeline for the SSEP publication is too late for projects aiming to connect in the early 2030s, particularly given the long timelines required for consenting, procurement, and construction. “This is far too late for Scottish onshore wind projects seeking to connect in 2031, 2032, or 2033,” the developers stated. In response to concerns, Chris Stark, head of mission control at DESNZ, recently stated that it was “certainly not the intention” to apply a de-facto ban on onshore wind in Scotland post-2030. Stark also noted that there are “opportunities to grow the supply of onshore wind quite significantly” across both Scotland and England. Despite Stark’s comments, the developers argue that the current proposals in the Clean Power Action Plan do not align with this intention and are seeking clarification from the government.

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