Black Law Wind Farm

Black Law Wind Farm is an 88 turbine wind farm in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is located near Climpy in South Lanarkshire and has been built on an old opencast coalmine site which was completely restored to shallow wetlands during the construction programme. When it opened in 2006, it was the largest windfarm in the United Kingdom at the time. The site was approved in 2004. It wass originally built at a cost of £90 million with 54-turbines and a total capacity of 124 megawatts (MW). The first phase of 42 turbines was the largest sufficient to meet the average electricity needs of 70,000 homes each year - or a town the size of Paisley - and was estimated to save around 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year. In 2017, the site was extended with an additional 34 new turbines with an additionalcapacity of 63.4 MW. The site employs seven permanent staff on site and created 200 jobs during construction. Phase 1 was the first built in 2005, consisting of 42 turbines, which at the time was the largest onshore wind farm in the UK. Phase 2 added another 12 turbines in 2006, with subsequent extensions in 2017 bringing the total turbine count to 88. The project has received wide recognition for its contribution to environmental objectives, including praise from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who said that the scheme was not only improving the landscape in a derelict opencast mining site, but also benefiting a range of wildlife in the area, with an extensive habitat management projects covering over 14 square kilometres.