Largest wind farm starts in Scotland

The UK's largest wind farm came online this week, bringing the total power supplied from the renewable source to a still small 0.7 percent of the country's electricity, the British Wind Energy Association said. The 50.6 megawatt Rothes wind farm in Moray, takes the UK's wind generation to 979 megawatts, about the size of one nuclear power station. Wind power is expected to reach 1.5 percent of the UK's supply by the end of the year after 18 new farms come onstream. "The wind industry is now expanding at a record rate. This year alone it will be commissioning as much new capacity as was achieved in the whole of the 1990s," said Marcus Rand, CEO of BWEA. "In 2006, it is set to grow at an even faster rate." The government aims to have 10 percent of its electricity generation by 2010 from renewables, of which wind is expected to play a major part, in an effort to cut emissions of greenhouse gases from the power sector.