The wind farm is located in the Kilbraur area of Strath Brora, Sutherland, approximately 10 km northwest of Golspie. The land at the wind farm is extensively used for grazing habitat by sheep and deer. Following detailed monitoring of the wind resource, consideration of the location, environmental effects and the distance from local communities we concluded that Kilbraur was an ideal location for a wind farm. After carrying out, and submitting extensive environmental assessment work the Highland Counci granted planning permission in March 2006.
The first phase of the project was constructed under a single contract with Nordex UK Ltd with site work commencing in 2007 with local contractor R J Mcleod after preliminary civil engineering work to improve the site access across both private and public land was completed by another local contractor, Tulloch Civil Engineering Ltd. Each of the 19 turbines measures 115m to the tip of the blade and they were provided by Nordex as one of the world’s leading turbine suppliers based in Germany (http://www.nordex-online.com/en/) via the port of Invergordon and the project was completed in 2008. The grid connection required Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission Ltd to construction a new 275 kV substation within the wind farm. The sub station, which utilises one large 90 MVA transformer, was built directly adjacent to the existing Beauly-Denny 275 kV transmission line and connects the wind farm electrical output to the national grid. The second phase of the project was completed in 2011 where 8 similar Nordex turbines were installed bringing the overall wind farm to 27 turbines with an installed capacity of 67.5MW
The wind farm generates enough clean, green electricity to supply around 27,000 homes and help reduce reliance on existing less environmentally-friendly energy resources. It is estimated that the wind farm will displace up to 107,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year which would otherwise have been produced by a power station burning fossil fuel. The wind farm is owned by Kilbraur Wind Energy Limited (KWEL) part of the Falck Renewables Group. In March 2014, CII Holdco Ltd, part of Copenhagen Infrastructure I K/S, acquired 49% of KWEL from the Falck Renewables Group. The project was developed with RDC Scotland in association with West Coast Energy Limited.