ScottishPower this weekend began generating electricity from its new windfarm, at Hare Hill, in Ayrshire, the first in the UK to operate without a subsidy.

The 13 Megawatt (MW) windfarm, near New Cumnock, cost £10 million and will supply electricity to around 10,000 homes.

ScottishPower has successfully connected the first four of the 20 towers to the electricity grid and expects the windfarm to reach full output next month once commissioning tests have been completed.

Hare Hill is the UK's first windfarm to operate outwith financial incentive schemes for renewable energy, such as the Scottish Renewables Order and its equivalent in England, the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation.

It is ScottishPower's 10th windfarm and takes the company's investment in windpower to more than £100m. Over the next 10 years the company plans to increase its wind power capacity from 100 MW to 500 MW.

Hare Hill is expected to share in the small premium to be created by government measures to encourage renewable power and reduce emissions from conventional power stations. These include the Climate Change Levy and a Supplier Obligation requiring electricity retailers to source 10 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2010.

The new windfarm will also benefit from advances in wind technology which has helped to reduce the cost of producing wind energy. The turbines for example can be controlled remotely from ScottishPower's business headquarters at Cathcart which increases generating efficiency by allowing operators to take wind conditions into account.

The turbine blades are driven by the prevailing westerlies which cross Ayrshire unimpeded until they hit the 2000 foot Hare Hill. The windfarm took six months to build. It will displace 40,000 tonnes of CO2.

Work on ScottishPower's next renewable project, a 30 MW development at Beinn an Tuirc, in Kintyre, is already underway. The windfarm will be the UK's most powerful when operational at the end of next year.

Further Information:
ScottishPower Press Office:                                 0141 248 8200