Under the Clean Power Action Plan and the connections reform that sits beneath it, only around 700 MW of additional Scottish onshore wind is permitted to connect between 2031 and 2035. Set against more than 10 GW already operating, and a consented pipeline several times larger, in practical terms this means that, come 2030, we face what has been described by Aurora as a "de-facto ban on Scottish onshore wind".
There is a rationale for it – the uplift in the plan was directed to England and Wales, and Scottish generation still carries real constraint costs, until the network to move it south is built. But consider what the figure does to an ordinary project. Take a consented 150 MW scheme in the south of Scotland that, for entirely routine reasons – planning, supply chain, grid works – cannot energise until 2032. It is assessed against that 700 MW allocation. If projects ahead of it have taken the space, it does not receive a firm connection offer; it drops to an indicative one and effectively joins a waiting room. It can only move forward when the capacity figure is revised upward. In the meantime, the investment, the jobs and the community benefit all sit on hold.
The obvious place to fix this is the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP), which is meant to reset the post-2030 numbers. But the SSEP has slipped to autumn 2027, and revisions will not be applied retrospectively to offers already made. So, a project caught out in the current window cannot simply wait for the SSEP to rescue it. That gap – between the cap biting now and the review arriving in 2027 – is the real issue, and it is why developers are pressing for an interim decision rather than wait-and-see.
That decision now lands on a new desk. With this week's Cabinet reshuffle, Miatta Fahnbulleh takes over responsibility for energy from Ed Miliband, and the first SSEP pathway choice is due to reach the Secretary of State this summer. Whether the Government is willing to revisit the Scottish figure ahead of the full SSEP, or hold the line on the current allocation, will be one of the earliest tests of her tenure.
Scottish wind farm developers will be watching this one very closely. Whitelee demonstrates that the ambition and the capability are there. The question is whether the connections framework will allow the rest of the pipeline of Scottish projects to move forward. For developers, investors and communities looking to benefit from the next phase of onshore wind growth, that is a question that matters now, rather than in 2027.
