Geography For Schools

The Scottish Executive is committed to increasing the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources. This commitment is at the heart of measures to combat climate change.

Click here to go to the full Scottish Government Report:

The Scottish Government set a target of generating 18% of electricity from renewable sources by 2010, and 40% by 2020. The Scottish Executive believed that the 2010 target would be met mainly by hydro and inshore wind developments. After 2010 other forms of renewables such as offshore wind and marine energy will play and increasing role.

Background and Objectives

MORI Scotland was commissioned by the Scottish Executive to undertake a study examining the attitudes of people living close to windfarms in Scotland. The research was focused on larger sites, i.e. those windfarms with nine or more turbines. This survey was carried out in 2002. By this time there were ten sites with over nine turbines in Scotland.

The sample was structured in a way that allowed separate analysis by windfarm, and by three zones surrounding the windfarms – up to 5 kilometres, 5-10 kilometres and 10-20 kilometres.

Windfarms surveyed

Windfarm	Number of turbines
Beinn an Tuirc	46
Windy Standard	36
Novar	34
Hagshaw Hill	26
Dun Law	26
Bowbeat Hill	24
Harehill	20
Tangy	15
Beinn Ghlas	14
Deucherin Hill	9

Between 27th February and 18th March 2003 a total of 1,810 telephone interviews were conducted.

Survey results

• People living within 20km of windfarms like the areas they live in. Particular strengths of the areas were listed as: peacefulness (28%), scenery (26%), rural isolation (23%) and friendly people (20%). Shortcomings were listed as: lack of amenities (20%), poor public transport (18%), and lack of jobs (5%). Only 0.3% of people mentioned windfarms as having a negative aspect of the area.
• 20% of people said that their local windfarms have had a broadly positive impact on the area, whereas 7% said it had a negative impact. 73% of those questioned said that the local windfarm had neither a positive or negative impact, or expressed no opinion.
• People who lived in their homes before windfarms were developed said that they thought potential problems might be caused by impacts on the landscape (27%), traffic during construction (19%) and noise during construction (15%). In fact, after the windfarms had been built only 12% say that the landscape had been spoiled, 6% say there were problems with additional traffic, and 4% say that there was noise or disturbance from traffic during construction.
• There is substantial support for the idea of enlarging existing local windfarm sites, especially if the increase in the number of turbines involves the addition of not more than 50% of the existing number. 54% would support and expansion of their local site by half the number of turbines again, while 9% is opposed to this. If the number of extra wind turbines was to double, then support drops, only 42% would be in favour, and 21% would be opposed.
• 44% of people living within 5 km of a windfarm say that it has a positive impact, compared with 16% who live 10-20km away. Those living closest to the windfarms are more supportive of expansion of the sites.
• 33% of people who see the windfarms in their day-to-day lives say that windfarms have a positive impact on the area.
• While many of those interviewed feel that nuclear, coal and oil generation should be reduced 69% believe that electricity should be generated through wave energy