Late rotation commercial forest and heritable interest in operational wind farm lease
Griffin Forest extends to 4,090 hectares, and Ballinloan A to 154 hectares. The productive timber area at Griffin is 2,663ha (65%) and at Ballinloan A is 80.99ha (53%). Both forests are late rotation and the weighted average age is 35 years old. While the commercial crop age range is from 1 - 43 years, only 425.17ha are less than 33 years old, which is mostly recently restocked Sitka Spruce of between 1 - 3 years.
The other conifers include areas of Larch, Pine and Fir planted for species diversity and there is a small area of veteran Scots Pine around Loch Kennard which dates from pre.1860.
The forest includes an extensive area of open land, much in relation to the wind farm lease area, with communities of rich alpine-artic flora and other interesting habitats. Within the
open area, the lochs provide an interesting feature with a total 45 hectares of open water. The largest loch is Loch Kennard.
The Griffin Wind Farm was commissioned and accredited to the Renewable Obligation in 2012. The whole wind farm comprises 68 turbines, each with a rated capacity of 2.3 MW, and is operated by GreenPower (Griffin) Limited. Griffin and Ballinloan A together comprise 39 turbines with a total installed capacity of 89.7 MW. 37 of these turbines (total 85.1 MW) are located within Griffin Forest, and two turbines (total 4.6MW) are in Ballinloan A.
The current term of the wind farm lease extends to 2037. In line with market trends, the expectation is for this to be extended and the wind farm site repowered, but this will be
subject to the necessary consents. The wind farm has been developed with a high degree of sensitivity and most of the turbines are hidden from the public road network by the natural contours of the surrounding Perthshire landscape.