Whitelee Windfarm, located near Eaglesham, south of Glasgow, has been producing electricity for approximately 20 years. The site, one of Europe's largest onshore wind farms, is reaching the end of its operational life. Scottish Power Renewables, the owner, has announced plans to rebuild the site with 124 larger turbines, each standing at approximately 110m tall. This upgrade will result in a doubling of electricity output from 539 megawatts to 1 gigawatt, sufficient to power around 650,000 homes. The 'repowering' project is expected to take 10 years to complete and will generate around £330m for the Scottish economy.
The existing turbines at Whitelee will be replaced in three phases, with the first phase already announced. The upgrade is part of a larger trend, with more than half of Great Britain's current wind farm capacity expected to reach the end of its life in the next decade. This has led to a growing number of repowering projects, including the recent upgrade of 26 turbines at Hagshaw Hill in South Lanarkshire, which were replaced with 14 larger ones.