Europe’s largest onshore wind farm has been given the go-ahead in Scotland – just as plans to erect the UK’s biggest individual onshore wind turbine in Northumberland were approved by ministers.

The £600m Clyde wind farm will have 152 turbines and total capacity of 456MW, enough to power more than 250,000 homes.

The turbine to be built at Blyth will reach 163m, almost 30m taller than the London Eye, and will have generation capacity of up to 7.5MW.

Alex Salmond, first minister, hailed the Clyde wind farm decision as another step towards making Scotland the green energy capital of Europe. His devolved Holyrood government aims to generate 31 per cent of Scotland’s required electricity from renewable sources by 2011, and half by 2020.

Financial Times