from Sunday Herald, 21 November 2010
A highly controversial plan for a new coal-fired power station at Hunterston in North Ayrshire now looks doomed because Scottish ministers have quietly withdrawn their backing for the scheme.
A new Scottish government policy statement on electricity generation does not endorse the £3 billion plant proposed by Clydeport’s owners, Peel Holdings. Instead it makes plain that Scotland’s electricity needs can be met without it, due to the large projected growth in wind power and other renewables.
This is a dramatic shift from the government’s 2008 National Planning Framework, which supported the Hunterston coal station as a national development needed to meet electricity demand.
An application to build the plant has been met by more than 16,000 objections, with environmental campaigners, faith groups and local businesses uniting to oppose the development. It was also the subject of a legal challenge from a birdwatcher in the Court of Session last week, claiming that local people were not consulted on the need for the plant.
But the new policy, posted online on the same day as the budget last week, signals a change of heart by Scottish ministers. “There is no current need for an increase in overall thermal capacity,” the policy statement says.
“A huge increase in the potential of renewable electricity has led to a downward revision in the estimated requirement for new-build thermal electricity generation plant.”
This has been interpreted by environmental groups as spelling the end of Hunterston project, as well as another hotly disputed power scheme – Scottish Power’s plan to convert an old coal plant at Cockenzie in East Lothian to gas. It also confirms that there is no need for any new nuclear plants.
“This would seem to signal a death knell for new coal or gas power stations such as those proposed at Hunterston and at Cockenzie,” said Duncan McLaren, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland.
He pointed out that, according to the new policy, Scotland would need just 2.5 gigawatts of power from fossil fuel plants in 2030. This could easily be met by cleaned-up electricity from refurbished plants at Longannet in Fife (2.4 gigawatts) and at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire (up to 1.6 gigawatts), he argued.
McLaren described the policy as “highly conservative” because it underestimated the amount of power that would be produced by renewables. Given the government’s turnaround, it was “somewhat surreal” that its lawyers were still fighting the legal challenge in the Court of Session, he said.
Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland, agreed. “The government is clearly saying there is no strategic case for the proposed new coal station at Hunterston,” he said.
According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the new policy was “emphatic confirmation” that a new coal station was not needed. “The process of identifying national developments in the planning framework clearly requires an urgent review to make it more robust and accountable,” argued the society’s Aedán Smith.
Ayrshire Power, the company set up by Peel Holdings to build a coal plant at Hunterston, maintained however that the new policy was “entirely consistent” with its objectives. It backed carbon capture and storage, which was part of the company plan.
The policy showed there was a need for “new efficient thermal capacity” to achieve a low-carbon Scotland, claimed the company’s project director, Muir Miller. “The proposed power station at Hunterston is a very high efficiency facility when compared to existing coal plants,” he said.
The Scottish government confirmed that its draft electricity generation policy statement showed that the increase in renewables meant Scotland will, in future, require less thermal electricity generation capacity.
“There will still however need to be a minimum of 2.5 gigawats of new or upgraded thermal capacity, progressively fitted with carbon capture and storage, all of which reinforces our policy against new nuclear power in Scotland,” said a government spokesman.
“Every application for thermal electricity generation capacity will be considered on its own economic, environmental and social merits.”
A spokesman for Scottish Power said: "Our detailed plans for a combined cycle gas turbine power station at Cockenzie are currently being evaluated by the Scottish government."
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