Sutherland green hydrogen scheme sparks fears among locals
By Sandra Dick Journalist
For a short spell in the mid-19th century, the rolling hills and gushing
burns that cut through Strath Brora in Sutherland were tinged with golden
promise.
California, and the hills were alive with hope.
Just beyond the entrance of Christina Perera’s Strath Brora home are the
narrow single-track roads those eager gold prospectors would have almost
certainly taken; twisting and turning, with blind corners, hidden summits
and just a handful of passing places crossing open moorland.
Yet she fears the narrow road will soon become a busy route for a different
kind of prospectors, on their way to growing a new hydrogen fuel industry.
The quiet corner of east Sutherland is at the forefront of a new ‘gold
rush’ by renewable energy firms to harness excess power from wind farms and
turn water into the fuel that could transform the nation’s energy landscape.
At Strath Brora, energy giant SSE Renewables wants to use its 46 turbine
Gordonbush wind farm, 2km northwest of the town of Brora, to produce around
2,000 tonnes of hydrogen a year, creating an ‘all green’ alternative to
traditional fuels.
Unlike petrol, diesel or natural gas which produce harmful carbon dioxide
emissions, hydrogen emits only water vapour into the atmosphere. Such is
its potential, the Scottish Government has a £100m five-year plan to build
the nation’s hydrogen economy, hopeful that by 2030 it will provide nearly
a sixth of Scotland’s energy needs.
The Gordonbush Hydrogen Production Facility – described as a “demonstrator
project” – has been given £304,000 of Scottish Government support and is
one of 17 UK hydrogen projects to progress to the latter stages for funding
from the UK Government’s Net Zero Hydrogen Fund.
Such a plant would solve another issue: SSE Renewables has received more
than £20 million in constraint payments for Gordonbush wind farm for times
when the turbines have to be switched off. Instead, energy produced by the
turbines could be used in hydrogen production.
But for some who already feel under siege from wind turbines looming over
their doorsteps, the arrival of hydrogen tankers and new power plants is
less than welcome.
At her home in Ascoile, the nearest residence to Gordonbush Wind Farm,
Christina fears the green ‘gold rush’ in Strath Brora is a sign of what
lies ahead for other rural communities living in the shadow of scores of
wind turbines.
Her home is only around 1km from the proposed hydrogen production plant:
tankers travelling to and from will pass around 20 metres from her door.
“I first heard about it on April 1 last year and I genuinely thought it was
an April Fool,” she says. “I thought ‘this can’t possibly be real’ https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/23851932.sutherland-green-hydrogen-scheme-sparks-fears-among-locals/?fbclid=IwAR0QEsxVw6FUdmtoWRh3PQggNIQJ05gpmNtjLMRHjbGe14em2X4GMZfH4Ps
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