A Caithness renewable energy researcher has told a TV documentary that he feels onshore wind turbines enhance the landscape.
Magnus Davidson, a research associate at North Highland College UHI’s Environmental Research Institute in Thurso, also made it clear that he sees no problem with further wind developments in the area.
However, he pointed to the high price of electricity in the north of Scotland and said it was unacceptable to have fuel poverty within sight of turbines.
Mr Davidson (29) took part in the BBC Scotland documentary This is Our Land along with several other young Scottish professionals who are working in the countryside in the midst of the climate crisis. The hour-long programme, made by the production company Finestripe, was screened on Tuesday night and is available on the BBC iPlayer.
Mr Davidson’s role involves trying to understand the interactions between the environment, the economy and society. A large part of his research focuses on renewable energy in the Highlands and Islands and understanding the associated socio-economic benefit.
Speaking on This is Our Land – filmed at the beginning of December last year – he called the north of Scotland “the powerhouse of renewables”, and reflected on the contrasting attitudes to onshore wind.
He said: “There’s a lot of electricity, that’s for sure, and a lot of it gets transferred south. Some people say the benefit get transferred with it too.
“You can really understand why people here who have perhaps been around for a long time, struggling with some of the economic and demographic challenges, see this development come in that could offer a lot of benefits.
“However, if you’ve just moved into an area to enjoy the natural scenery and a big development wants to come in and change what you’ve bought into, you can see entirely why they might say ‘not in my back yard’.
“One of the main things we find here is that we pay the highest price for electricity in the whole of Scotland, the whole of the UK, we’ve got some of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Scotland and the UK, yet we’re sitting on a resource that is generating 400 per cent of the electricity that we actually use.
“We have fuel poverty within sight of wind turbines and I don’t think that’s very acceptable.”
He added: “I’m never ashamed to say I think that the onshore wind turbines really enhance the landscape. I quite like the contrast between these wide open expanses and I find that the turbines themselves quite often frame the landscape.
“We’re in a really beautiful part of the world and I think these certainly enhance that.
“There’s always places you shouldn’t be putting wind turbines. There is no way I would stick a wind turbine at the top of Ben Nevis or Suilven or some of these places, but I see no problem with wind turbines here. I see no problem with more wind turbines in areas like this.
“The main thing that these turbines actually provide is low-carbon electricity and I think we can lose sight of that when we’re talking about other kinds of benefits.”
Later in the documentary Mr Davidson said he was looking forward to the Sutherland spaceport project which would be environmentally friendly.
“The opponents of the spaceport talk about it in terms of the climate crisis,” he said. “What’s really interesting is that a lot of these small satellites that are being launched are actually used to monitor the impact of climate change.
“I’m relatively comfortable with the idea that these satellites will be used for the greater good.”
Speaking this week, Mr Davidson said he was delighted with the way the programme had turned out.
“The production company Finestripe got in touch via a researcher as they were interested putting together a documentary looking at young people living across rural Scotland interested in various rural industries,” he explained
“They asked for input across a whole range of rural issues, particularly energy and demographics for us here in the far north. They then came up for two days of filming at the beginning of December 2019.
“We filmed the interview in the Pentland Hotel and then visited Baillie Wind Farm, Coldbackie, Talmine and the Mhoine to discuss the spaceport, and then Strathy North wind farm thanks to SSE. We had hoped to visit Forsinard to discuss the flows but ran out of time!
“The finished product was great. The contributions from the other folk were particularly interesting, and it was really insightful to see the opinions and aspirations from those other sectors.
“I actually know a couple of the other contributors through work. It was nice to be able to showcase the merits of the far north from perhaps a different angle than the usual channels.
“It was also great to be able to discuss some of the issues I find important here, particularly around energy generation and associated impacts, as well as developments like the spaceport and demographics.
“I would have loved to have taken them around some more sites in Caithness but we were constrained by our time and visiting the spaceport site.”
Mr Davidson is a board member of Thurso Community Development Trust and a committee member of the Caithness Broch Project. https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/onshore-wind-turbines-enhance-the-landscape-says-caithness-renewable-energy-researcher-217514/
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