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Shaking off its image as one of Europe’s laggards on renewable energy, the UK last month gave the go-ahead for the EU’s largest onshore wind farm.

The electricity company Scottish Power won permission on 27 April to erect 140 wind turbines on 55 square kilometres of moorland and forest south of Glasgow. When completed in 2009, the £300 million Whitelee wind farm will generate a peak of 322 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to the average power demand of 200,000 homes.

Whitelee is expected to supply 5 per cent of the capacity required to meet Scotland’s target of generating 40…

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