Orkney has a long history in the use of renewable sources of energy. In 1955 a wind turbine erected on the summit of Costa Head was connected up to the Orkney Grid. People in Orkney had been using wind turbines (or windmills as they were known then) to power mills for a long time.
The first known wind turbine used to produce electricity was built in Scotland by Professor James Blyth of Anderson’s College, Glasgow, in his back garden in 1887.
Professor Blyth’s windmill used cloth sails but the one on Costa Hill had 60 feet metal blades fabricated at John Brown Ltd, the great Clyde shipbuilders. The Orkney windmill survived many a strong wind until successive storms wrecked it and by 1957 it was no more. It was not replaced. The construction of Dounreay brought in a nuclear future. The discovery of massive oil reserves in Scotland’s waters saw an oil boom pour previously unimaginable riches into the UK exchequer. On the island of Flotta, an oil terminal was built and came online in 1977 changing that small island forever. It processes crude oil piped to it from fields in the North Sea. The council secured a deal for an oil fund which today it relies upon to keep public services running.
Heriot Watt University established the International Centre for Island Technology (ICIT) in 1989 in Stromness. ICIT had become involved in the islands through its Institute of Marine Engineering links with the Flotta Terminal in the 1970s. Its reputation for research and development, particularly in renewables, found in the islands a ‘living laboratory’. In the 1970s as oil was being pumped to Flotta, a giant experimental wind turbine was built on Burgar Hill.
ICIT was interested not just in the generation of energy through wind but also by marine renewables. The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) was founded in 2003 and tests devices for wave and tidal power. Present day Orkney has a wealth of experience and skill in the energy sector, especially renewables and in 2000 Orkney Renewable Energy Forum (OREF) was formed. Its membership is open to businesses and individuals with an interest in the renewables sector. OREF provides a link between its membership and developers involved in the future of the industry in Orkney.
It’s a future which is already being created. In Orkney there are many small individual wind turbines next to farms and homes. According to OREF there are “more than 760 small-scale wind turbines and 370 solar panels in the county.” Ten percent of the UK’s domestic wind turbines are in Orkney. There are also community owned wind turbines including in the smaller islands of Shapinsay, Westray, Eday, Hoy, and Rousay. Orkney Islands Council (OIC) is the largest investor in the Hammars Hill Windfarm of five Enercon E44 wind turbines. Burgar Hill now hosts six turbines, which vary in height from 76m to 116m.
For over ten years Orkney has produced more than its own domestic needs in renewable energy. According to Scottish Government statistics (2023) 31 percent of households in Orkney are in fuel poverty. This means that households are spending over a tenth of their income just in keeping their homes warm. There is no mainland gas in Orkney and many homes still rely on oil heating. The move, however, is increasingly to be all-electric. Another hike in electricity prices in the UK took place in October 2025 plunging more households in Orkney into fuel poverty.
Robert Leslie has worked in the energy advice and support sector in Orkney for 15 years, and was a founding member of local affordable warmth charity THAW Orkney.
In his role he has seen the impacts of damagingly high electricity prices on Orkney households. He commented:
“When you see folk in Orkney burning candles under upturned ceramic flower pots propped up on bricks in their sitting rooms, with their electric storage heaters turned off because they can’t afford that form of heating, then you know there is something fundamentally broken about the UK’s privatised energy system.
“I have visited houses where the folk have rationed their annual electricity usage by well over 50% compared to previous years, and are heating their homes with imported gas bottles instead. In a place of plentiful clean, green electricity this is criminal.”
The electricity generated in Orkney is fed into the UK Grid. The first subsea cable connecting Orkney to the UK Grid was in 1982. A second subsea cable was installed in 1998. The system connects up the power generated in Orkney to be transported south where it is then distributed, some of it back to Orkney. This ‘sharing and pooling’ system ensures that places that do not produce enough energy for their own needs, large cities like London, can be assured of a constant supply. The Grid serves England, Scotland, Wales and several surrounding islands. Northern Ireland is part of an island-wide electricity system with the Republic of Ireland.
When the Grid system was set up, coal was king, and large power stations provided the energy supplies needed. Renewables has changed that, but the function of the Grid, although massively increased in size and complexity, has remained the same. In places like Orkney, most of Scotland, North England and North Wales, where fewer people live, the highest prices are paid. The amount a consumer pays for electricity favours those living in large urban areas, like London. The reason given is because of higher costs to distribute the electricity back north to where it is actually produced. The Grid system is outdated, unfair, and not fit for purpose.
SSEN Transmission’s ‘Pathway to 2030’ is an upgrade to the electricity network in the north of Scotland, including Orkney and Shetland. It will connect up new offshore and onshore windfarms generating electricity and transport it into the Grid. The north of Scotland will contribute over 50GW of clean renewable energy to the UK Grid by 2050. The Orkney-Caithness 220kV HVAC Subsea Link is part of this wider connectivity project. Orkney’s existing wind generators along with new wind farms will connect into this network for transporting south.
Orkney Community Wind Farms, developed by the local council, consists of three projects: Quanterness, just outside Kirkwall, the island of Hoy and the small island of Faray, home to an internationally important colony of grey seals. Each wind farm will contain six turbines that are 149 metres in height from base to blade tip.
The proposed Hesta Wind Farm, in South Ronaldsay, has consent for five turbines of maximum height 125m, and one at Costa Head, in the West Mainland, was also approved. The wind farms being developed by Low Carbon were rejected by Orkney Islands Council and went forward to appeal which was granted by the Scottish Government. The Decision by Malcolm Mahony, a Reporter appointed by the Scottish Ministers stated:
“I find that the proposal would have significant but acceptable impacts on seascape, landscape and visual amenity and on archaeological assets.”
Where the subsea cables reach landfall in Orkney and Caithness, extensive engineering works are taking place. These include, on the Orkney side, a stone platform where the subsea cable comes ashore at Warebeth beach Stromness, onshore cables, a substation on the outskirts of the village of Finstown, and a temporary camp for the 250 plus workers needed to complete the project. The engineering is impressive. The Finstown substation that the locally produced wind farm energy feeds into, will connect up to the subsea cable. The onshore cables will be mostly underground. Costa Head Wind Farm and Hesta Head Wind Farm projects may involve overhead poles.
According to the council their Orkney Windfarm Project, would see communities across Orkney “receive a combined £432,000 each year through a location-specific Community Benefit Fund.” Low Carbon’s website states (and this is from September 2019) that Hesta Head and Costa once operational, “will provide significant economic benefit to the islands including a community benefit of £5,000 per MW installed and an additional £1,000 per MW installed towards fuel poverty.”
Just outside Orkney’s inshore 12 nautical mile limit a proposed Windfarm of up to 67 turbines could be installed. The Ayre Offshore Wind Farm will not be coming ashore in Orkney, but to a substation in Caithness. There will be two offshore substations and subsea cabling linking those to the wind turbines. Thistle Wind Partners (TWP) are also building the Bodun Offshore Windfarm, 44km from Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. These developments are projected to produce 1GW of renewable energy into the National Grid each and powering a combined total 2.4 million homes. The Ayre Offshore Windfarm will be clearly visible from Orkney.
A 160-mile long undersea cable will carry the power generated from the Viking Windfarm in Shetland to Noss Head, near Wick. 103 Vestas turbines are expected to produce around 1.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of renewable electricity annually. SSE state:
“This output is sufficient to power nearly 500,000 homes each year. It will be the most productive onshore wind farm in the UK, marking a significant increase in the UK’s clean energy capacity”
Onshore and Offshore wind projects are also being developed in the Western Isles. Pathway 2030 includes: a 1km of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Converter Station and an Alternating Current (AC) Substation near Stornoway , a HVDC subsea cable from Arnish Point, Stornoway to Dundonnell on the Scottish mainland; a mainland HVDC Converter Station near Beauly; and underground cabling linking up these points.
It is the greatest energy heist since the discovery of oil in Scotland’s waters. Homes in Scotland will see no reduction in their electricity bills. Community payouts, when they do come through, will be small compared to the profits generated by the Energy Companies. For the consumer, prices are two thirds higher than they were in 2021. Energy Companies, since the end of 2020 have profited to the tune of over £5billion. This obscene level of profiteering is made possible because of the outdated and unfair system in the UK.
Orkney, and the north of Scotland, is a powerhouse for renewables. The potential for energy production onshore and offshore – not just in wind but also in marine installations, could generate billions in revenue for an independent Scottish Exchequer and ensure energy security for rUK. We have the engineering expertise and skills to develop a Grid system which would put local needs first, and export the excess for sale. None of this can happen in the UK’s ‘pooling and sharing’ as promoted by the Unionist Better Together mantra of the last ten years. Renewables are the hope for limiting Climate Change. Scotland has a significant part to play in the Energy Transition but with very few benefits for most of her population.
Robert Leslie is standing for the Orkney constituency as the local SNP candidate. He said:
“An independent Scotland would use powers over energy market design to provide support for flexible, green energy generation. By creating more renewable energy in Scotland, there would be less reliance on high-cost gas and security of supply would be increased.
“As an island group with established grid management, Orkney is in a great position to lead the way on owning and running our own energy system for the benefit of the whole population and showing how a fairer system is possible.”
