The UK wants to generate enough wind energy to power every home in the country by 2030. Remote island groups are at the heart of that goal. We visited a wind farm in Scotland’s Shetland Islands to find out more.
Scotland enjoys some of the windiest conditions in Europe, making the Shetland Islands, the northernmost islands of the United Kingdom, the perfect place to develop and harvest wind energy.
To this end, British power company SSE has invested millions of dollars in the construction of the country’s largest onshore wind farm, which is due to be completed in 2024.
With 103 turbines, the Viking Wind Farm can power nearly half a million homes.
SSE chief executive Alistair Phillip-Davies said energy security was paramount.
“We don’t want to import oil and gas from remote areas that we don’t want to deal with anymore and we don’t trust these regimes anymore,” Phillips-Davies told CNBC.
However, insufficient grid capacity in the UK could undermine its ambitious goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030.
We visited Viking Wind Farm, which was built over 15 years ago, to learn more.