GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is hoping to install two wind turbines on its Montrose site, taller than the ones at the Michelin tyre plant in Dundee.
The turbines would generate enough electricity to make the site self-sufficient and deliver excess to the National Grid, helping to achieve the company’s ambition of a “carbon neutral” site.
The pharmaceutical giant is to hold a public consultation meeting in the Links Hotel on September 15, when the company will share details of the proposal. A spokesman for GSK said that if all went to plan the turbines would be operating on site in 2013, producing six megawatts of electricity, enough to power the equivalent of 3000 homes.
“To get to that level of electricity generation you need to put in turbines which are going to be something like 130 metres in height,” he said. The proposed turbines would be 10 metres taller than the turbines at Michelin, which stand 120 metres high from the ground to the blade tip.
A lot of preparatory work has been going on ahead of a forthcoming planning application to Angus Council, including months of monitoring the birds in the area.
The spokesman said that an environmental impact assessment had to be carried out ahead of a planning application. “That work has been on going since the back end of last year and has yet to be completed.”
The environmental assessment is looking, among other things, at the effect that the installation of wind turbines on the site would have on the bird life and any other animals in the area.Flora and fauna”We have involved Scottish Natural Heritage, the RSPB and anybody else who might have an interest in the flora and fauna of the locality,” the spokesman added. “The consultants doing this have almost a year’s worth of consultation with various bodies doing the monitoring work.
“Someone is monitoring in a very specific way the bird flights across the Montrose site in the area where the turbines would go. That work will come to a conclusion this autumn.”
In addition, a lot of work has been going on to help decide exactly what size and type of turbine would be best for the site.
“One of the things you do in preparation for this is put up a meteorological mast from which you monitor wind strength over the site and wind direction,” the spokesman said. “You monitor wind conditions for about a year.
“We have a bit to go but early indications are that the wind across the site is viable for a couple of wind turbines. If all goes according to plan what GSK would like to do is erect two turbines each capable of generating up to three megawatts of electricity.”
He said that would make the site essentially self-sufficient. “The scheme would generate electricity greater than the site’s immediate needs.
“All of the electricity would go in to a local network and any surplus that GSK would generate over and above its immediate needs to operate the site offsets the carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, which the combined heat and power unit currently operating on the site produces.
“It will have to continue to operate because it generates steam, which is vital to the manufacturing process which GSK have on site. The company will have to continue to run the combined heat and power unit that burns natural gas, that gives off carbon dioxide.
“By generating more electricity from wind power you offset the carbon dioxide and ultimately you get to a position where you have the equivalent of nil carbon dioxide footprint on the site.”