In this press release we look at these headline claims from Cubico’s website:

Scout Moor II is a proposed onshore wind farm, located on the South Pennine Moors between Rossendale and Rochdale. If approved, it will generate up to 100MW of clean electricity – enough to power more than 100,000 homes each year. But this is about more than clean energy. It is about protecting the moorland, funding local priorities, and delivering real, long-term benefits for nearby communities.​

We are creating a locally managed fund worth at least £600,000 per year, calculated as £6,000 per MW installed or 3% of annual project revenue – whichever is greater.​

We have broken this down into three key claims and discuss each one below. We will show that none of the claims have any merit. As you read our analysis, remember that Cubico are owned by a Canadian Pension Fund, so all profits will ultimately flow back into the hands of Canadian pensioners.

Claim 1: It will generate up to 100MW and power more than 100,000 homes

This is unfortunately an established and sadly legal approach to explain the amount of energy that a wind farm can produce. However, to the general public, it gives the impression that this wind farm could keep 100,000 homes powered continuously. This is not the case as we shall explain.

The wind farm has the nominal rating of up to 100MW, i.e. the amount it could generate when working continuously at maximum. However, this would never be realised in practice.

Incidentally, 100MW is the threshold above which it would have to be determined as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project. Cubico don’t want to go over this because then it would go into the large queue of applications and face long delays and less certainty of approval.

For Scout Moor 1 the average capacity factor to the end of 2024 was 27.9%. This means that Scout Moor 1 produces an average of 27.9% of its nominal rating each year because of fluctuations in the wind, grid balancing requirements and maintenance. Let’s round this up and assume 30% for Scout Moor 2.

Therefore, the practical rating, i.e. what it could produce at any point in time on average, would be 30% x 100MW, i.e. 30MW. Since there are 8,760 hours in a year, Scout Moor 2 would generate 262,800MWh over a year.

Based on Ofgem’s Typical Domestic Consumption Values (TDCVs), an average home uses about 2.7MWh per year. Therefore, the average number of homes it could power would be 262,800MWh divided by 2.7MWh, giving 97,333 households powered on average. This figure is close to their figure of 100,000, which validates our calculations.

Cubico might argue that they could achieve a higher capacity factor to justify their “more than 100,000 homes”. However, have they accounted for the fact that Scout Moor 1 will steal wind from Scout Moor 2 and vice versa? This will make each wind farm less efficient than if sited in isolation. Cubico have told us that it is normal to come to a commercial arrangement with neighbouring wind farms to account for this known problem.

Also, Cubico have stated up to 100MW ever since their first proposals, which were originally based on 21 x 180m turbines. Since they have not yet selected the manufacturer or model of turbine, their “up to” figure must be a best case scenario.

Whichever way you look at it, Scout Moor 2 is unlikely to achieve a capacity factor much above 30%. What does this mean in practice? The first thing we need to understand is that a Cubico home is an average, not a real home. Their claim should therefore be rewritten more transparently as follows:

it will generate up to 30MW of clean electricity on average – enough to power an average of 100,000 individual homes when the wind is blowing

Of course, when the wind is not blowing it will power no homes at all.

Claim 2: It is about protecting the moorland

Seriously. They want us to believe that digging up thousands of tonnes of peat and burying many times more thousands of tonnes of concrete bases will protect it? Those bases will never be removed. 

What is to stop the government restoring the peat without building a wind farm in the first place? It’s not lack of money, as we’ll demonstrate when we look at the next claim. Lancashire Peat Partnership are already recommending peat restoration projects across Lancashire that do not rely on wind farm development. They point out that it can take hundreds of years to restore peat, and construction would increase flood risk and severely damage its ability to capture carbon.

We also need to highlight the many miles of additional access tracks which will provide more access for illegal and anti-social off-road motor-bikers. It will also cause irreparable damage to our unique heritage such as Waugh’s Well, the Cotton Famine Road, Catley Lane Head Conservation Area and Prickshaw & Broadley Fold Conservation Area.

Scout Moor 1 already endangers wild life. Curlews have been added to the red list of endangered species and skylarks are also in decline. Scout Moor 2 can only make this situation worse.

And lastly, these turbines will be manufactured overseas so their transportation and construction will lead to increased carbon emissions. In fact, the Scottish Government are reviewing the official Carbon Calculator because they found that it overstates carbon dioxide emissions reductions for wind farms on peat moorland. It could even lead to increases!

Claim 3: Funding local priorities and delivering real, long-term benefits for nearby communities

Cubico are offering a community benefit fund of at least £6,000 per MW installed or 3% of annual project revenue – whichever is greater. This sounds like a lot, possibly £600,000 per year. But where will this money come from?

It will come from guaranteed government contracts called Contracts for Difference (CfD) auctions, whereby Cubico will be paid a minimum amount, called the Strike Price, for each MW hour (MWh) they produce. We now have the likely prices for the latest round of CfD auctions and onshore wind has gone up from £89/MWh in Allocation Round 6 (AR6) to £92/MWh in AR7. This immediately blows out of the water the argument that renewables are getting cheaper.

Now compare this to the average gas wholesale price:

• Was £32/MWh in AR6
• Now £38/MWh in AR7

Cubico will be receiving a guaranteed income from a supposedly free energy source that is 155% higher than the wholesale price of gas!

The government (i.e. ourselves) must therefore fill at least some of the gap between the wholesale price of gas and what they receive through CfD. We don’t know what this will be yet but on current trends it’s likely that the taxpayer will be on the hook for at least £54/MWh in subsidy.

The total annual public subsidy would be up to 262,800MWh x £54/MWh, i.e. about £14m. This means the community benefit fund of £600,000 would be about 4% of the total subsidy of £14m.

The Levelled Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is about £40/MWh for onshore wind and this covers capital, operating and maintenance costs. This means that Cubico would make £52 profit for each MWh they generate, all paid by us through subsidy!

Whichever way you look at it, Cubico would be giving us back a tiny proportion of the money we give them. Can someone please explain how that is a good deal for consumers?

Therefore, whatever the Community Fund Benefit fund is spent on will come out of our own money. We suspect that, wherever that money is spent, there will also be highly visible Cubico branding advertising their beneficence! 

And forget about local jobs. We have looked at Scout Moor 1 accounts and they show zero employees as all maintenance is carried out by specialist contractors.

Lastly, the development poses a serious threat to the continuation of commoners exercising their rights of common, which are integral to the area’s social fabric. These rights, rooted in centuries of customary use, support grazing and other traditional practices that sustain both the ecological balance and cultural continuity of the moor.

Conclusions

1. The wind farm would have a capacity factor of 30% and so on average will only generate 30MWh of electricity each year.
2. On average it would be able to supply 100,000 homes but when the wind isn’t blowing this figure will drop to zero.
3. It will inflict severe harm on the environment, wild life and do irreparable damage to our unique heritage assets.
4. Off-road bikers will get a major boost with many additional miles of access track.
5. It will contribute to rising energy costs as the latest Contracts for Difference auction AR7 has shown.
6. It will receive public subsidies from ourselves of around £54/MWh, in total about £14m/year.
7. Based on a standard cost of £40/MWh, the wind farm would generate £52 profit/MWh, all paid by us through subsidies!
8. In return Cubico will provide a Community Benefit Fund of around £600,000 per annum which is only about 4% of the annual £14m public subsidy they will receive.
9. It will not create any meaningful local jobs.
10. Common land rights are threatened.
11. Paradoxically, the wind farm could increase carbon dioxide emissions.
12. It would result in making Canadian pensioners very wealthy.

A final thought

Two men recently got 4 years in prison for chopping down a single tree. What do you think would be an appropriate sentence for people running the company that is going to destroy so much peat, Waugh’s Well and the Cotton Famine Road?