By Andrea Lambrou
Innovative plans for Kype Muir Wind Farm have been given the green light
following the installation of a state-of-the-art radar system at Glasgow
Airport.
Along with air traffic services company NATS, and Banks Renewables, Glasgow
Airport has introduced a new radar that can mitigate the impact of the wind
farm near Strathaven.
The development will generate 88.4MW of renewable energy from its 26 turbines.
NATS will manage the dual Terma SCANTER 4002 radar system which is capable
of supporting air traffic control requirements and mitigating the impact of
the turbines.
The system is now operational and NATS has secured the contract to operate
and maintain the service for the 25-year life of the wind farm.
Due to their height and movement patterns, wind turbines can have a range
of impacts on navigational systems, including being detected by Primary
Surveillance Radar (PSR) and appearing on air traffic control screens.
This can have a number of impacts including distracting controllers,
masking ‘real’ aircraft and mimicking the appearance of actual aircraft to
the extent that they must be avoided by other aircraft.
Such impacts can have a detrimental impact on the safety, efficiency and
capacity of the airspace surrounding airport.
As a statutory consultee, Glasgow Airport must assess wind farm development
proposals up to 50 kilometres away and ensure any proposed development will
not pose a risk to the safety of the 30 airlines who fly over nine million
passengers to and from the airport every year.
Glasgow Airport managing director Mark Johnston said: “We are very pleased
to announce that the system is now fully operational. For the last three
years, the airport’s planning team has been worked extremely hard with our
partners from NATS and Banks Renewables to develop this wind turbine
mitigation solution in what is a very complex and safety critical environment.
“As well as resolving the issue with Kype Muir, the mitigation may also
have the potential to resolve issues with other future wind farm proposals,
which can only be of benefit to Scotland’s renewable energy sector.”
Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, Michael
Matheson, commented: “It’s great to see Glasgow Airport hosting the launch
of this new radar system, which is a significant development for aviation
safety.
“The new radar is able to distinguish between aircraft and wind turbines
situated at Kype Muir Wind Farm, and this technology will be invaluable
with the ever-growing sustainable energy sector.”
Glasgow was one of the first airports in the world to deploy large scale
wind turbine mitigation in the form of infill radar and has continued to
innovate by deploying single turbine blanking in response to the increasing
number of developments.
As a result, it has approved 90 per cent of the 495 wind turbine
applications it received between October 2012 and August 2016. These
projects have the potential to generate more than 700MW of energy.
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