Howpark Wind Farm
Repowering
Developers
Onshore Wind
Scotland
Scotland’s largest refurbished onshore wind farm
Working with Eurowind Energy, we supported the delivery of Scotland’s largest refurbished wind farm in the Scottish Borders. A subsidy-free development comprising of eight turbines.
- 16MW (8 wind turbines)
- Client Eurowind Energy
- Status Operational
The project
Working with Eurowind Energy, Locogen successfully supported the delivery of Scotland’s largest refurbished wind farm. Located in the Scottish Borders, the 16MW Howpark wind farm is a subsidy-free development made up of eight Vestas V80 turbines.
Already operating a strong portfolio across Europe, Eurowind were looking to expand their portfolio into the UK.
Howpark was developed by Livos Energy, who obtained planning consent, a grid connection agreement and land rights in 2018. It is situated between two existing wind farms which were developed with smaller turbines of 80-100m height to blade tip and this preclude the opportunity to utilise modern large scale turbines. With challenging economic and site conditions this unique site required a strategic approach to turbine selection.
Our approach
Locogen acted as Technical Advisor, Project Manager and Owner’ Engineer, providing end-to-end technical and advisory support throughout the acquisition and delivery of the project, including:
Acquisition due diligence including a full review of permits, planning conditions, and proposed changes to the candidate turbine model. In addition Locogen assessed the environmental constraints, grid connection, land rights, transport constraints, project design, energy yield, construction and O&M scope and costs and supported with financial modelling.
By undertaking this rigorous review we were able to identify key risks to the project and potential cost-savings which included a shorter and more cost-effective grid connection route. This enabled Eurowind to have a deeper understanding of operational considerations and achievable cost savings at the start of the project.
The outcome
By being flexible, providing support when needed and our depth of experience we were able to support the delivery of this ambitious project to completion.
A key win was securing land rights from 11 landowners which allowed the grid connection route to be 15% shorter than that proposed by Scottish Power. The servitudes that were secured also avoided over 3 miles of cable trenching along/within a busy A-road and together these actions led to a 25% reduction in the overall connection cost over the original DNO offer.
The site was commissioned in 2024 after a challenging construction period which started during the Covid pandemic and considerable delays in grid connection.
Economic considerations are paramount in subsidy-free wind farms and the savings achieved by reducing grid connections costs and using refurbished turbines were key in this project. Utilising refurbished turbines saves and additional ~4,400 tonnes of CO2 compared to using new turbines and reduced recycling impact by extending turbine life expectancy.
