Mainstream Renewable Power has called on RSPB and other environmental charities to agree a “common objective” with offshore wind farm developers for battling climate change.
The Irish company’s chief executive Eddie O’Connor, writing in today’s Times newspaper, said the charity has overstated bird impacts in the Forth and Tay estuaries.
Some 2.1GW of projects, including Mainstream’s 450MW Neart na Gaoithe, had their consent reinstated earlier this month by an Edinburgh court in a decision which overturned an earlier ruling in a case taken by RSPB.
“A recent article, quoting from the RSPB, stated that thousands of gannets could be harmed every week,” O’Connor wrote.
“This claim is so far from reality that it undermines our ability to work together to find solutions to help to mitigate the impact of climate change on Scotland’s marine wildlife.”
Turbine advances have “enabled us to alter the design” of the Neart na Gaoite project, O’Connor added, to reduce numbers of machines. In addition, Mainstream has decided to introduce larger spacing between turbines.
He said RSPB’s “strident reaction to the court decision is…puzzling” given the existence of new research on bird impacts.
“The advances in turbine technology, reduction in turbine numbers and improvements in knowledge of sea bird behaviour mean that previous assessments of risk to birds are gross overestimates.”
He added: “It is time for the RSPB and across the environmental movement to sit down with us and the Scottish government to agree on a common objective: the imminent risk to all life posed by climate change and the necessity to work together to find solutions to this.”
RSPB has yet to respond to O’Connor’s comments.
Image: reNEWS
