Scottish ministers approved plans for Europe's largest onshore windfarm yesterday, giving a significant boost to government proposals to increase the amount of wind-generated electricity.

The planning decision will allow Scottish & Southern Energy to erect 152 125-metre turbines in south Lanarkshire. The £600 million Clyde windfarm, between Biggar and Moffatt by the M74, will be able to generate 456 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 320,000 homes. Construction is expected to start this year, with the first turbines operational by 2011.

The approval was welcomed by Britain's wind energy industry, coming only three months after Scottish ministers had rejected plans for another giant wind farm on the Isle of Lewis amid concerns about wildlife.

Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, made yesterday's announcement at the World Renewable Energy Congress in Glasgow. “The Scottish Government has an ambitious target to generate 31 per cent of Scotland's electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011 and 50 per cent by 2020,” he said.

Under European Union targets adopted this year, the UK as a whole is committed to generating about 40 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, up from 4 per cent. The bulk of this is expected to come from the expansion of wind-generated electricity.

It also emerged yesterday that the world's largest offshore windfarm in the Thames Estuary will go ahead after a decision by E.ON, the German utility, and Dong Energy, of Denmark, to buy out Royal Dutch Shell, their partner, for an undisclosed sum.

— Government plans to cut Britain's carbon emissions will fail unless a deadline is set to abolish the use of conventional coal-fired power stations, MPs have said in a report by the Commons' Environmental Audit Committee. It also leaves the Government increasingly isolated in its support for E.ON to build a £1 billion coal-fired power plant in Kent, the UK's first in more than 20 years.

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