Futures Forum: The system is rigged against onshore wind ... and is about to be rigged in favour of fracking
It is being more accepted across the county:
Futures Forum: Campaigning for wind power
As the weekend i newspaper reports:
Why wind power looks like the energy of the future
(
Friday October 26th 2018
Remember when wind farms were a red hot topic? When opinion was split between those who saw them as green energy saviours and those who accused them of killing birds, blighting the landscape and emitting sinister noises?
Well, those arguments have mostly abated and the reason is pretty obvious. While offshore wind farms continue to proliferate, the boom in onshore wind farms that saw nearly 1,500 facilities built across the UK in just over a decade, has virtually ground to a halt.
When Scottish Power announced this week it will become the first major UK energy company to generate all its electricity from turbines instead of coal and gas, it did so against a backdrop of stalled investment in onshore facilities.
Zero action in England this year
There hasn’t been a single application to build a new onshore wind farm in England this year, while Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales aren’t far ahead, applying to build just 18 between them. As recently as 2014, there were 55 applications in England alone.
The onshore wind power landscape changed radically in 2015 when then Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged public concern about the technology and declared “enough is enough”. By banning the subsidy contracts that guarantee the price for electricity, he effectively removed the guarantee investors need to stump up the cash for onshore farms.
The screws were tightened even more when local communities in England were given more of a say in whether wind farms got built.
Lawrence Weston estate
One farm that got built before the ban is at the Lawrence Weston housing estate on the north west outskirts of Bristol. It is funded by the city council and local energy company Thrive Renewables.
“I feel good when I look at the turbines – I find them quite meditative really and they generate about £15,000 of much-needed cash for the community a year,” says resident Roger Sabido, a retired software systems engineer.
“To start with some of the residents were quite apprehensive because there had been quite a bit in the press about them being noisy and ruining people’s views. But now they’ve got them they really don’t have a problem,” he says.
Debate could restart
The dearth of new onshore wind farms may have quelled the arguments for now, but that could change – at least in some parts of the country. Technological developments, improved manufacturing techniques, bigger blades and falling part prices from economies of scale, mean the costs of generating onshore wind power are now a fraction of what they were.
Wind farms are now able to provide electricity much more cheaply than any other power source, including gas, nuclear, coal and solar.
If wind power producers were made eligible for subsidies again it would slash the cost of power, experts say. Enough new onshore wind farms could be built in six years to wipe £1.6 billion off the UK’s collective electricity bill – that’s nearly £60 per household over 15 years, according to a study by BVG Associates. The investment in new plant would also boost local economies and create 18,000 jobs.
Remember when wind farms were a red hot topic? When opinion was split between those who saw them as green energy saviours and those who accused them of killing birds, blighting the landscape and emitting sinister noises?
Well, those arguments have mostly abated and the reason is pretty obvious. While offshore wind farms continue to proliferate, the boom in onshore wind farms that saw nearly 1,500 facilities built across the UK in just over a decade, has virtually ground to a halt.
When Scottish Power announced this week it will become the first major UK energy company to generate all its electricity from turbines instead of coal and gas, it did so against a backdrop of stalled investment in onshore facilities.
Zero action in England this year
There hasn’t been a single application to build a new onshore wind farm in England this year, while Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales aren’t far ahead, applying to build just 18 between them. As recently as 2014, there were 55 applications in England alone.
The onshore wind power landscape changed radically in 2015 when then Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged public concern about the technology and declared “enough is enough”. By banning the subsidy contracts that guarantee the price for electricity, he effectively removed the guarantee investors need to stump up the cash for onshore farms.
The screws were tightened even more when local communities in England were given more of a say in whether wind farms got built.
Lawrence Weston estate
One farm that got built before the ban is at the Lawrence Weston housing estate on the north west outskirts of Bristol. It is funded by the city council and local energy company Thrive Renewables.
“I feel good when I look at the turbines – I find them quite meditative really and they generate about £15,000 of much-needed cash for the community a year,” says resident Roger Sabido, a retired software systems engineer.
“To start with some of the residents were quite apprehensive because there had been quite a bit in the press about them being noisy and ruining people’s views. But now they’ve got them they really don’t have a problem,” he says.
Debate could restart
The dearth of new onshore wind farms may have quelled the arguments for now, but that could change – at least in some parts of the country. Technological developments, improved manufacturing techniques, bigger blades and falling part prices from economies of scale, mean the costs of generating onshore wind power are now a fraction of what they were.
Wind farms are now able to provide electricity much more cheaply than any other power source, including gas, nuclear, coal and solar.
If wind power producers were made eligible for subsidies again it would slash the cost of power, experts say. Enough new onshore wind farms could be built in six years to wipe £1.6 billion off the UK’s collective electricity bill – that’s nearly £60 per household over 15 years, according to a study by BVG Associates. The investment in new plant would also boost local economies and create 18,000 jobs.
Cheaper bills
In the longer term, onshore wind has the potential to cut energy bills down even, with the cost of generating electricity predicted to almost halve in less than 20 years, according to forecasts from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Falling prices – and the need to dramatically reduce the country’s carbon footprint to meet ambitious legally binding climate change goals – is putting the government under increasing pressure to reopen the subsidy system for onshore wind.
This week, 14 producers including the big six energy providers, Scottish Power and SSE, wrote to Business Secretary Greg Clark urging him to reconsider the government’s stance on onshore wind subsidies.
GEOFF CADDICK/AFP/Getty Images
The letter
“We are offering to deliver the new onshore capacity required by the government to help the UK government meet its climate goals and provide low-carbon power that will keep consumer bills down,” they wrote.
The Confederation of British Industry followed up the letter to Mr Greg Clark with one of its own, urging him to boost the economy by reopening the subsidy scheme to onshore wind.
Public support for onshore wind farms is also growing it seems. A recent government survey found that two-thirds of people would happily have a big wind farm in their area, while only 12 per cent would be strongly or slightly opposed. The remainder don’t have a strong opinion either way. This marks a considerable shift in public opinion – with a fifth opposed just five years ago.
Opposition remains
Not everyone loves wind turbines of course and there will always be opposition to new developments.
Retired company director John Keegan from the Yorkshire Dales speaks for many in the UK, when he says: “The fells are replete with ugly great big wind turbines sitting on the skyline dominating the lovely Lune Valley where I live.”
And even Bristol wind power advocate Mr Sabido concedes: “You could find the wrong location for them where they were dominating and intrusive. But decent and well placed with just a modicum of sense and they work quite well.”
This means that in densely-populated England – where more stringent planning regulations give local communities a greater say in whether a project goes ahead and wind speeds are slower than elsewhere in the UK – there is limited scope for onshore expansion.
But in windier, sparsely populated areas of Scotland and Wales, there is much more potential, should the government allow would-be producers to apply for subsidies once again.
Government position
UK energy minister Claire Perry has held out the prospect of reopening subsidies for onshore wind power, telling MPs last November: “I think onshore wind is absolutely part of the future. I am working on ways with the team to see how we might bring forward onshore wind, particularly for areas of the UK that want to deploy it.”
A government spokesman said “we do not believe that large-scale onshore wind is right for England” – but pointedly declined to comment on Wales and Scotland, holding the door open to the possibility that they may one day be able to apply for subsidies again.
The consensus in the industry is that while further onshore wind development looks likely to be very limited in England we could well see a resurgence elsewhere in the UK.
PANEL:
Last year was another mammoth year for wind energy in the UK. Turbines provided 14.8 per cent of the power used – 8.6 per cent from onshore farms and 6.2 per cent from offshore facilities.
Wind power is continuing to grow this year, overtaking nuclear power for the first time. On a windy day in March, the industry set a new record, generating 13.9 GWs, or 37 per cent of the country’s entire electricity supply.
Offshore soaring
While onshore developments are stalling, offshore developments look set to motor along thanks to the government’s aim of almost quadrupling the existing capacity of 7.9GW to 30GW by 2030. That target is looking “perfectly doable” according to Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr.
But while offshore wind is cheaper than most other forms of energy – and is set to get even cheaper in the coming years – it is considerably more expensive than wind power produced closer to home. The offshore turbines opening this year produce electricity at a cost of £104 per kilowatt hour, almost double the £55 per kilowatt hour of onshore wind.
Why wind power looks like the energy of the future
.
.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment