Developing a new aesthetic for landscape ahead of 2030

By Marc van Grieken

Marc van Grieken is a Chartered Landscape Architect, Fellow of the Landscape Institute and Chair of the Landscape Institute Technical Committee

To achieve net zero, it will be necessary to add thousands of wind turbines to the UK landscape. Ahead of COP26, Marc van Grieken asks if it is time for a new aesthetic which also addresses the needs of climate emergency.

As the government prepares for the COP26 summit in November, the relationship between the measures taken to meet the UN Summit’s goals, and the impact of these measures, come ever more sharply into focus. Some of our landscapes are already changing because fossil fuels are being replaced with renewables. Changes can be very subtle or more clear cut. For example, in Scotland, the ‘relative’ extent of landscape change due to wind farm development is frequently expressed in terms of ‘landscape without windfarms’, ‘landscape with occasional windfarms’, ‘landscape with windfarms’ or ‘windfarm landscape’. Climate change affects us on a scale we have never seen before, but there have been periods that posed similar challenges to landscape professionals.

Tulip field. Illustration of tulips being grown on sandy clay in the large polders of the former Zuiderzee at 4-5 metres below sea level.

© Marc van Grieken

Reconstruction after the Second World War contributed to the need for increased electricity generation, matched by other infrastructure projects such as motorways. Sylvia Crowe argued that the landscape of Britain faced the greatest crisis in its history. Rather than opposing change and ‘protecting the countryside’, landscape architects at the time (Colvin, Moggridge, Holford) laid the foundation for large scale landscape planning. Infrastructure development provided an opportunity to refresh thinking and to create new aesthetics [see page 15]. In the case of windfarm developments, it is perhaps ironic that many people, including some landscape architects of that era, now oppose landscape change associated with wind energy.

Electricity related infrastructure has three main components: generation, transmission and distribution/ consumption. In the case of fossil fuels there is a fourth, namely the transportation of the fuel to the power stations. Of these, the overhead transmission infrastructure often caused concern because it was seen as an intrusion or blot on the landscape. These concerns were recognised early on and addressed by section 37 of the Electricity Act, also referred to as the ‘amenity clause’ which was added in 1959. This required that due attention be given not only to economic and technical and other considerations (now commonly referred to as the “Need Case”) but also to the effects on the natural beauty of the countryside and flora and fauna. This reference to the natural beauty of the countryside not only placed landscape architects at the heart of planning, routeing and the design of transmission lines, but also created the opportunity to engage in large scale landscape and master planning .

Large coal-fired power stations in the UK generated between 2000 and 4,000MW compared with the largest windfarms currently in use at Whitelee and Clyde in Scotland (which generate approximately 1050MW in total in two different locations). There is therefore a mismatch between the location of potential renewable energy sources and available grid. Such a mismatch will increase the need for either substantial upgrades or additional transmission lines. Wind farms are frequently the subject of considerable opposition, mainly relating to landscape and visual effects. Many objectors talk about dominance of the turbines based on a comparison between the height of the turbines with existing landscape features. First-generation wind farms with turbines in the order of 35-50m in height were broadly welcomed and accepted. This was usually because the turbines could be fitted into the landscape without breaching any (scale) characteristics of the landscape.

Between 2000 and 2012, the scale of wind energy development increased significantly, especially in Scotland, with turbines substantially increasing in size and height and becoming more efficient.

In England, support declined and opposition grew as turbines became taller and developments larger. Wind farm proposals became a political football, with the Cameron government effectively putting a moratorium on onshore wind. The then Secretary of State refused most of the applications in England that went to appeal. Windfarm development all but totally stalled when subsidy was withdrawn. This led to a surge in solar farms but they too attracted opposition.

The Scottish government promoted so-called Feed in Tariff developments. These were highly subsidised renewable energy developments limited to a maximum of 5MW and requiring limited environmental assessment. Although short lived and mainly resulting in the development of single turbines below 80m tip height, this led to a plethora of turbines appearing in the landscape in a rather uncoordinated manner.

This might have been the end of onshore wind energy development in the UK, but, in the world market, technical advances resulted in considerably larger turbines. Between 2000 and 2015, generating output of turbines almost trebled whilst tip heights of turbines broadly doubled. Increases in hub height and longer blades take advantage of the higher average windspeed to be found above 100m or more above ground level and generate more energy. This has led to a large number of wind farm proposals of up to 149.5m tip height, thereby avoiding the requirements for aviation lighting.

Hypothetical example of a windfarm using very large turbines that transcend the landscape. The funnel-like pattern is disengaged from the underlying field pattern and land uses but is almost literally channelling generated electricity to a node of transmission lines at Harker Substation.

© MVGLA using Windplanner

Harker substation.

© Marc van Grieken

World markets also pushed ever-bigger turbines, and all those factors combined showed that subsidy-free developments were potentially feasible and the resurgence in development proposals began. Many schemes with planning permission for turbines in the range of 110-135m tip height are now being redesigned and resubmitted for planning consent with turbines of up to 235m or more tip heights. Turbine heights have again almost doubled in the last 6-8 years. It is expected that considerably larger and taller turbines (designed and developed for offshore) will be deployed on land in the UK within the next 10-15years. These may have rotor blades of 120-150m (with a 240-300m radius) on towers between 190-220m, giving tip heights between 300-370m. In June 2021, LM Wind Power in France unveiled the longest blade to date at 107m. While the development of these large turbines is beneficial operationally and commercially, they lead to ever stronger objections and opposition to onshore wind.

It is often forgotten that many hydroelectric schemes caused very substantial impact on the landscape dramatically changed views and drowned valleys, including those of significant cultural heritage. The engineering triumphs exemplified by the Norris Dam (1936) and Douglas Dam (1943) or Cruachan power station would, most likely, not receive the same reception in 2021.

...should we continue trying to fit renewable energy schemes including onshore wind into our landscape, or should we search for an approach that recognises that we are dealing with a type and scale of development not seen before?

Causeymire Windfarm: This landscape is described as ‘large scale’. The turbines in the photograph have a tip height of 100m (tower height 60m and blades 40m). If these were replaced with turbines which have a tip height of 246m (towers 166m and blades 80m) and double the spacing distance, would they have similar effects or transcend this landscape?

© Marc van Grieken

The height of wind turbines is often difficult to estimate. In this photograph two turbines have a tip height of 198m and the turbine to the right is less than half of that.

© Marc van Grieken

Silton Manor Solar Farm

© Beatrice Dower

The question the landscape profession faces is, should we continue trying to fit renewable energy schemes including onshore wind into our landscape, or should we search for an approach that recognises that we are dealing with a type and scale of development not seen before? Meeting current targets for renewable energy will require the deployment of several thousand more turbines in Scotland, England and Wales, together with developing windfarms off-shore, solar farms and biomass sources of energy. Can we be confident and follow the examples set by Colvin and her contemporaries and create new landscape strategies, landscape frameworks and masterplans that positively respond to large scale wind or solar developments?

This should not be seen in isolation but in full awareness that many other renewable sources such as offshore, solar, tidal etc, together with policy developments, behavioural change and landscape planning using the Natural Capital and Net Benefit approaches, will also have very important roles to play in meeting our targets.

Windfarm landscape, Woodville New Zealand: With 3+ generations of turbines including lattice steel towers, one could argue that the disjointed layout and sizes of turbines ‘relate’ to the shape and form of the steep topography of the scarp below the turbines. Turbines more than 2 times the height of these would decouple such associations.

© Marc van Grieken

Changes in electricity generating sources need to be matched by changes in the electricity transmission network. When considering the combined effects of on-shore wind, expansion of the transmission grid and other Net Benefit measures, is it time for a new aesthetic? Does the scale and quantity of onshore wind farms and other large energy infrastructure that will be required to meet climate change targets require a new design narrative? If we agree that we do need a new design narrative, this need not replace all currently used approaches to manage the energy transition. We must, however, face up to the reality that our landscape changes socially, economically, ecologically visually and in the way we experience it.

Each of the following layouts show different heights and capacities of turbines, all which generate approximately the same amount of electricity within the same view and having approximately the same ‘land-take'. (Montages with 55 degrees included angle of view, produced by MVGLA using Windplanner software.)

97.5m tip height

© Marc van Grieken

150m tip height

© Marc van Grieken

198m tip height

© Marc van Grieken

246m tip height

© Marc van Grieken

350m tip height

© Marc van Grieken

The ‘energy transition’ kicked off with adopting a relatively careful approach to fitting the windfarm into the landscape. It has been demonstrated many times that melding a new development into any landscape requires a reasonable synergy between the scale and size of the proposed development with the scale of the host landscape. Turbines with a height dimension in the order of 50-80m tip, such as the turbine to the right in figure 5, still relate to, for example, the dimension in height of the poplars in this view. On the same basis, it is easy to make the argument that turbines with heights in the order of 200m are ‘out of scale’ and will be overly dominant. It is however most frequently the number that causes concern. The two turbines on the left in figure 5 are 198m to tip but commonly estimated as being 80-100m.

Most people are not fully aware of the true scale of energy transition that is required. Our generation has declared a climate emergency and wish to do something about it. We must accept that very large turbines cannot be treated in the same way as the small turbines we have seen so far. We must face the climate change challenge proactively, by developing, discussing and testing fundamentally different models, frameworks, masterplans and strategies to facilitate and understand the effects of placing thousands more turbines in the UK landscape.

Alternatively, we can sit on our hands, short changing the next generation by pretending to be responsible stewards of our existing landscape. Listing all the reasons why an unusual and unfamiliar concept, type, size and scale of development will not work is not constructive. It is defensive and demonstrates fear of the unknown. But landscape is not unknown, it is your landscape and my landscape and our children’s landscape, and the measures we take (or fail to take) to address climate change will change it. We must design our changing landscape not only based on our understanding of underlying processes, but also through development of a new aesthetic that applies to the energy generating infrastructure high above us and enhances, grows and develops the grounded landscape within which we live. We need to demonstrate that significant benefits can be derived from designing energy landscapes at a scale that transcends the landscape.

RES’s Kelburn Windfarm official opening. Will the next generation of children and grandchildren have the same concerns about seeing turbines in the landscape?