Australian wind farm monitored - from the banks of the River Clyde

The Murra Warra wind farm is one of the largest installations of its kind in Australia.

And it’s being monitored from the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow, along with more than 150 other renewable developments across the globe.

Staff at renewable energy firm RES are across 2.5GW of capacity worldwide, monitoring assets from East Renfrewshire to the United States from a brand new state-of-the-art control room that has just undergone a £400,000 redesign.

The company believes Scotland’s energy expertise will influence the management of wind, solar, battery storage and offshore grid technology across the world

Charles McLuckie, control centre manager at RES, said: “RES and Scotland have decades of experience in renewable energy and it’s a proud moment that the expertise honed in Glasgow over this time is now being exported across the world 24/7/365.

“With approximately 5000 calls per month to handle at the centre from right across our international assets, getting the design and layout right was absolutely key to ensuring our projects continue operating safely day and night.”

The new control centre is thought to be the most advanced of its kind, utilising cloud technology to enable remote and on-site access to monitoring data.

The upgrade also comes as Glasgow is preparing to host the COP26 climate change conference in October/November at the Scottish Event Campus on the other side of the River Clyde.

McLuckie added: “Scotland has been a leading player in the transition to carbon-free systems and gained a huge amount of experience and knowledge over the years, and I think that’s demonstrated perfectly by what we do here in Glasgow

“This facility here in the shadow of COP, literally just across the river here, and we are delivering those services right across the globe.”

The control centre opens as the Crown Estate Scotland prepares to announce the results of the latest ScotWind Leasing Round – set to bring 10GW of new offshore wind capacity to the Scottish market.

Steve Higman, head of operational performance at RES, said: “The energy transition is now in full swing and we approached the design of our control room with this in mind. It had to be cutting edge to cope with the demands of today and the possibilities of tomorrow.”