The 24

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

(MW) Ardrossan Wind Farm in

Ardrossan Ardrossan (; ) is a town on the North Ayrshire coast in southwestern Scotland. The town has a population of 10,670 and forms part of a conurbation with Saltcoats and Stevenston known as the 'Three Towns#Scotland, Three Towns'. Ardrossan is loca ...

, North Ayrshire,

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

was officially opened on 10 August 2004. The Vestas factory in

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle; , ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a Shires of Scotland, historic county and registration county of western Scotland. The county ceased to be used for local government purposes in 1975 and most of the area ...

, which now employs more than 200 people, has supplied the

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s for the Airtricity development. The company is providing access to the site for schools and other interested community groups to learn more about

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' has reported that the Ardrossan Wind Farm has been "overwhelmingly accepted by local people". A local councillor wrote that "The turbines are impressive looking, bring a calming effect to the town and, contrary to the belief that they would be noisy, we have found them to be silent workhorses". In the '' Hurricane Bawbag'' storms of December 2011, one of the turbines of the wind farm catastrophically failed in a ball of fire.

References

Wind farms in Scotland Ardrossan−Saltcoats−Stevenston {{UK-powerstation-stub

See also

References