At a conference in Edinburgh on the future of renewables in Scotland, Cooley said: “The fact is that the industry can no longer rely on public subsidy to make the projects viable so the industry as a whole needs to start to stand on its own two feet.
“We are now at a point where the industry needs to start making the transition into the next phase of its development.”
Cooley also drew attention to the fact that the first of the current onshore wind sites will require repowering as they come to the end of their lifespan in the mid 2020s.
“This capacity will need to be repowered or it is going to be lost,” he said.
As well as urging developers to be more cost efficient and reduce reliance on subsidy, he said, that regardless, of all the recent changes SSE “remains positive” about the future of onshore wind in Scotland.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) confirmed last June that it would scrap the Renewables Obligation (RO) support for onshore wind by April this year, one year earlier than planned.
In the same month, Scottish Power insisted that the UK’s offshore wind sector needs to become subsidy-free “as soon as possible” to secure its future within the generation mix.