Viking Wind farm

Scale: Approximately 150 turbines with up to 540MW capacity.

Location: Shetland Islands. UK. Specific site, most of North Central mainland Shetland.

Size: Site area will be about 18 km north-south and at widest point 11 km East to West. (That's about 11 miles by 7 miles)

Area of site: 12,800 hectares (32,000) acres.

Development cost £800m

Cable to mainland UK ("the interconnector") £500m +

Chronology

First announced September 2003.

Viking Energy Limited set up

2005 Viking Energy Ltd and SSE Generation Ltd (subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Electricity PLC) sign memorandum of understanding for joint project.

Initial planning expected 2006, then 2007, then summer 2008. Finally made planning application over two years kate in May 2009.

Initial public consultation March 2007.

April 2008 second brochure released from Viking Energy, unlike their first offering, this is met with indifference. Many people are finding their claims and arguments no longer credible.From this point Viking Energy begin to withdraw from public debate .Shortly afterwards they (incompetently) attempt to take their website offline by removing all links on their home page. (www.vikingenergy.co.uk)

Developers

Developers: 50/50 joint Project between Viking Energy Ltd (subsidiary of Shetland Charitable Trust) and SSE Viking Ltd (subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Energy plc ). Each partner carries one vote.

900 of the 1000 shares in Viking Energy are owned by Shetland Charitable Trust. This is a community fund in trust to the people of Shetland. Remaining 100 shares are held by 4 individuals, one of whom works as a consultant or employee (depends who you ask) of Viking Energy Ltd.

This site...

Sustainable Shetland is a campaign group formed in March 2008 in response to a proposal for a large scale wind farm in Shetland. We believe these large industrial projects are damaging to our environment. We believe that the Viking Energy wind farm endangers Shetland Community Funds, project costs are underestimated and project income grossly over stated.

We believe that the Viking Energy proposals are everything we do not need in Shetland: they are financially risky and potentially damaging to the Shetland environment.

We want to see sustainable renewable energy projects in Shetland which are fit for scale and fit for purpose, and provide real community benefit.

We are not an "anti windfarm" campaign. However we are strongly opposed to the Viking wind farm proposal. Other projects will be considered on their own merits.