LABOUR leader Keir Starmer has been pulled up by a top fact-checking service over his claims about a Scottish wind farm.
It comes after Starmer, speaking at an event organised by The Tony Blair Institute, made claims about Whitelee Wind Farm, the UK’s largest onshore wind farm.
Based just south of Glasgow, Whitelee is home to some 215 turbines. ScottishPower, which runs the farm, said that it can generate up to 539 MW of electricity, enough to power more than 350,000 homes.
But speaking to Tony Blair at the Future of Britain conference in July, Starmer claimed it was home to 350 wind turbines which “were all made in Indonesia”.
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FullFact, a registered charity based in London, checked Starmer’s claims and found that they were “wrong”.
Siemens Gamesa, the wind turbine division of Siemens Energy, told FullFact the 140 wind turbines they provided in the initial phase of Whitelee’s development were manufactured in Europe.
The firm said: “All the main components came from Denmark and Germany.”
French multinational Alstom reportedly provided the turbines installed during the second phase of development at Whitelee, and Scottish Power said they were also manufactured in Europe.
FullFact noted that a separate wind farm altogether, the Neart na Gaoithe offshore project east of Fife (site shown below), does include some component parts from Indonesia.
The fact-checker reported: “The construction of 54 steel foundation jackets, on which the turbines and offshore substations will be installed, is being completed by the company Saipem, mainly at their base in Karimun, Indonesia.
“Two of the jackets are being made in Arbatax, Italy, and eight jackets were manufactured at a fabrication yard in Scotland.”
EDF Renewables, which is behind the Neart na Gaoithe farm, said: “We have worked closely with our tier one preferred suppliers, encouraging them to use Scottish suppliers in the production of components.
“However, that is not always possible: when this is the case, our tier one suppliers use overseas suppliers.”
Siemens Gamesa will provide the turbines for that offshore project, with the blades produced in Hull, FullFact said.
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