Scottish Executive grants planning permission for 拢300m project at Whitelee, south of Glasgow.

Planning permission for the biggest inland wind farm in Europe has been granted by the Scottish Executive.

The 拢300m project at Whitelee, south of Glasgow, is being built by ScottishPower and will include 140 turbines, producing a total of 322 mW of electricity or enough power for 200,000 homes. It will come into full operation in 2009.

As part of the permission, ScottishPower will build a new radar tower for Glasgow Airport that will help it to avoid the wind farm producing a fuzzy image on its own radar systems.

Allan Wilson, deputy enterprise minister of the Scottish Executive, said that the wind farm would save 650,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year and supply 2% of Scotland's energy needs.

The Scottish Executive is aiming to generate 18% of the country's electricity from renewable sources by 2010 and 40% by 2020.