RWE insist they still have long-term plans for Lewis
Doubt has been cast on the future of two onshore wind projects in Lewis – though the developer, RWE Renewables UK, now says that they both feature in its “long term plans”.
The issue came to light when the Energy Consents Unit of the Scottish Government posted on its website that the German-owned company’s plans for Heastabhal windfarm in North Lochs had been “withdrawn”.
This project involves 14 turbines with a total capacity of up to 100 megawatts and was first proposed in 2023 along with Grimashader windfarm which has a planned capacity of 79.2MW. Little has been heard of them since.
Although neither project has planning consent or an offer of subsidy through Contract for Difference, both are included in the “queue” for the interconnector between Lewis and the mainland.
One immediate response was to see a route into the “queue” for community-owned projects if this substantial RWE element was no longer included.
However, when Donald Mackinnon MSP contacted the company, their response maintained that the projects are still alive.
Nick Taylor, stakeholder manager for RWE Renewables UK, told Mr Mackinnon that the matter could be “easily explained” and continued: “The Energy Consents Unit recently contacted us regarding the length of time our projects have been on the planning portal without being formally submitted into planning.
“We agreed with the ECU that they could update the status of the projects on the portal but we reiterated that both projects remain in RWE long term plans and we are still working to prepare an application.
"Unfortunately, it seems the ECU miss understood this and assigned the ‘withdrawn’ label to the projects”
Mr Taylor stated: “This is not the case and thankfully the ECU has amended this. However, it seems that a number of people saw this before it could be rectified.
“I can confirm that both are still in the plans for RWE but do accept that they are taking some time to finalise the application.
"Unfortunately, this is due to a number of reasons, including having to bring a new environmental consultant on board to complete a number of the surveys.
"As soon as we have further information and a timeline for you, I will let you know”.
Mr Taylor also apologised for being “unable to attend the Lochs Show this year” but confirmed that “we are still able to support the show as the main sponsor”.
Despite RWE’s insistence that the two Lewis windfarms feature in the company’s “long term plans”, the episode casts fresh doubt on the fairness of the interconnector allocation system which effectively blocks small community projects because capacity has been reserved for larger speculative ones put forward by commercial developers.