News and stories on the the latest developments

June 27th, The Guardian "Rising bills will pay for low-carbon economy"

Household gas bills could rise by up to 37% and electricity costs by 13% as the government lines up consumers to pay for a green revolution that would move Britain from oil dependence to a low carbon economy.
A renewable energy strategy outlined by ministers yesterday signalled that energy bills could soar by hundreds of pounds, and could push over 2 million extra people into fuel poverty.
John Hutton, the industry secretary, said proceeding with business as usual was not an option in the face of climate change, and added that the price of change was "really quite modest". But he promised special measures to ensure the poorest sections of the community were not hit hardest: "We have got to provide help, if we can, to low-income families particularly those with children, to meet the rising cost of energy."

Surcharges on gas and electricity are expected to reach a peak in 2020 under the government plans, as consumers help pay for £100bn investment by the private sector in wind turbines and solar panels, in an attempt to meet EU targets of producing 15% of all UK energy from renewable sources. The first government estimates of the cost to the consumer are published at a time when British Gas customers could face price rises of a further 30-40% later this summer as a result of a steep increase in wholesale gas costs.
Energywatch, the consumer group, said that every 1% increase in power bills brought 40,000 people into fuel poverty, defined as those who spend more than 10% of their income on lighting and heating. The current number is 4.5 million.

"We are very worried about the impact of this [renewable strategy]," said Patricia Ockenden, a spokeswoman for energywatch. "Most of our work is already focused on the fuel poor and the existing cost of energy for the wider population."
Friends of the Earth supported the government's drive to use far more renewable power, but said loading the cost onto the consumer was misguided. "It is politically stupid and socially incompetent to proceed down this path. The government needs a quantum leap in energy efficiency to show there is no contradiction between more renewables and tackling fuel poverty," said campaigner Dave Timms                                          

June 26th, The Telegraph, "7000 Wind turbines to transform the British Landscape"

June 26th, Financial times, "UK launches plan for 7,000 wind turbines"

Plans to erect 7,000 new wind turbines will be unveiled by the government on Thursday but industry experts are concerned they have not been thought through.

The plans are the centrepiece of the government’s renewable energy consultation, setting out the means to meet the UK’s obligations under European Union proposals to generate 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.
As the target includes transport and heating, the UK would have to generate about a third of electricity from renewables by 2020, a leap from the 5 per cent generated from renewables today. The government estimates £100bn investment, mostly from the private sector, will be required.

But some experts cast doubt on the government’s proposals. Sue Ion, vice president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said the engineering problems had been “totally underestimated if accounted for at all”.

She asked: “How on earth can you present a plan which is as ambitious as the one laid out without any thought as to how you will tackle the project management, supply chain and deployment challenges?”
Mark Williamson, director of innovations at the government-funded Carbon Trust, said: “The key question is can we deliver this major dash for renewables in less than 12 years and at the lowest cost to the consumer?”

Local opposition is also likely to be a serious obstacle. The British Wind Energy Association said wind farms with nearly 10GW of capacity - four times the amount built so far - were awaiting planning decisions, most stalled by local objections.
The government’s drive to increase the energy generated by renewables will generate 160,000 new jobs, the prime minister will announce today.
But as ministers prepared to unveil a consultation document on renewables today, the Department for Business admitted many of these would be abroad.

June 26th, The Guardian "Hutton tells power grid to clear barriers to wind"

The government will today take a bold step it believes will remove the biggest single barrier to renewable energy: access to the National Grid.

Today, wind farms can wait 10 years or more to supply homes and businesses. To end this, ministers have told the high-voltage network to start building connections before formal financial commitments from users. The operating company, National Grid plc, confirmed it had agreed to start "sharing" of transmission lines so electricity from wind could use them when needed, handing back capacity to conventional power when the blades are not turning.
The government also plans to change the remit of the regulator, Ofgem, so it puts more emphasis on low carbon schemes to use the 10GW of green power stuck at various stages of development.

The planning process will be also speeded up, and the Ministry of Defence has been told to drop objections over alleged radar interference from turbines. 

June 23rd, Government response to Downing Street anti-wind petition                                            

June 23rd, Daily Mail, "Ministers want a new wind turbine built every day for 12 years to meet EU green targets"    

 

June 22nd, The Telegraph "Wind power comes to my Back Yard"

Towering over a hilltop near where I live on the Mendips, in Somerset, is a shiny, new 330ft wind turbine - a perfect symbol of the greatest political unreality confronting Britain today.
The sole reason that a Government inspector insisted it should be built, overriding all normal planning rules and a unanimous vote by our local council, was that within 12 years, Britain is obliged by the EU to generate nearly two fifths of its electricity from "renewables", most of it from 20,000 wind turbines like this.
There is not the remotest chance of this target being met.

The unreality of our energy policy is now such that the Government talks about building 10,000 giant turbines offshore - at a rate of more than two a day - when it knows that neither the technical nor practical resources exist to achieve more than a tiny fraction of that figure.

Furthermore, as was recently admitted by Paul Golby, the chief executive of E.ON, one of our leading energy companies, even if we could build all those turbines, we would have to build dozens of conventional power stations to provide 90 per cent back-up for when the wind is not blowing.

And yet, by 2015, we stand to lose more than a quarter of our existing generating capacity from the closure of 16 nuclear and coal-fired power plants through a combination of obsolescence and EU anti-pollution laws.

Far from the drive for wind energy adding to our existing capacity of 76 gigawatts (GW), Mr Golby explained, we should have to enlarge our capacity to 120GW, costing hundreds of billions of pounds.

Just as we are threatened with massive power cuts from the closure of existing plants, we would thus have to build 50GW of nuclear or fossil-fuel capacity to compensate for the wind's unreliability.

We are threatened with a truly massive disaster.

I have spoken before of "the great wind scam", and how its only beneficiaries are the developers, who now make nearly twice as much money from the derisory amount of electricity their turbines produce as the companies that provide 99 per cent of our power by conventional means.

For each megawatt of capacity, a windfarm developer gets on average £130,000 a year from selling his electricity to the grid, plus another £109,000 a year in subsidy paid by the rest of us in higher electricity bills under the Government's "renewable obligation" scheme.

Meanwhile, up and down the country, scores of local campaigns battle to save our land from disfigurement by these monstrous machines that have no useful purpose.

The campaigners soon discover how ruthlessly the Government has rigged the planning system in the wind industry's favour, in obedience to wholly fanciful EU targets.

The saddest thing of all, as we plunge towards this Government-engineered disaster, is that, if we look to the Opposition to save us by grasping the hard facts, we find it is as much in the grip of the madness as the Government itself.

As I have said before, stand by for the lights to go out - quite possibly when we have a Conservative government, which will not have a clue where to turn.

June 21, The Guardian "Wind power to drive green revolution"                                                       

June 2nd, "Who'll solve the wind turbine supply crisis?"

Explosive growth in the demand for wind power has created a global waiting list for wind turbines. Chinese turbine companies may be part of the solution as they ramp up production and get ready to export. 

May 29, 2008 "Wind power outlook weak in Europe, report says"

Rising materials costs, engineering challenges, and installation snags threaten European goals to dramatically expand wind power, according to a report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
The European Union aims to get 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020. But wind power won't meet a significant portion of that unless more government subsidies help companies offset increased costs, the firm warned Wednesday.
The world market for wind power will grow by 155 percent by 2012, according to a March report by the Global Wind Energy Council.
But a global backlog of turbines has sent wind park builders scrambling to keep projects on track. Expanding prices for steel and copper are a culprit. Engineers are also finding it tricky to build more powerful turbines.
Installation hold-ups loom in addition to rising costs, according to the Cambridge Energy Research report. Modified barges are used to set up offshore turbines, but only one such vessel is available that can install a five-megawatt turbine, and it can take a year to prepare more of them.                                                                                                            

April 2nd,"Overblown: The Real cost of Windpower"        

Mar 31st, The Journal, Voice of the North letters.

After knockback are we seeing wind farm developers in their true light?

YOUR report on Berwick Borough Council’s overwhelming rejection of three proposals for wind farms ( The Journal, March 28) made interesting reading.
When developers put forward their proposals, it is all sweetness and light as they portray themselves as benefactors of the community who seek to respond to the wishes of local people. We have recently learnt that E.ON has been working on another 10-turbine proposal, in the same area as the three proposals, and were quoted as saying ( The Journal, March 18) that “the local council . . . has the final say on whether the wind farm goes ahead”. The borough council has now had its say on the three proposals, but do the developers take any notice? No, they don’t; if they don’t get the result they want, they seek to appeal the decisions, which will result in costly public inquiries.

Over a whole day, the councillors on the planning committee conscientiously considered all the evidence presented to them by their officers and by those who had prepared many detailed reports giving grounds for rejecting the three proposals, and they reached their conclusion.The sweetness and light of the developers then suddenly changed. David Butterworth, managing director of Force 9 Energy, was not too happy about seeing local democracy in action.

You report his feelings about the councillors: “I have never seen such a spineless performance by a group of people who are clearly more interested in their own self-interest.” An interesting comment from a developer whose company would stand to make millions of pounds of profits if their proposal were approved.Do we now see the developers in their true light? JOHN FERGUSON, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

Editorial, "Paying a high price for democracy"

RESIDENTS of the Borough of Berwick tempted to wonder about the price of democracy are about to learn that it does not come cheap.
When councillors last week rejected three separate applications for wind farms, the available evidence pointed to them enjoying widespread support among their electorate.
The council’s own officers, however, recommended two of the applications be approved. Now the advice is set to be tested at appeal and possibly at a public inquiry as well.
They’re outcomes that will test the financial resources of the council and the will of its taxpayers, who may yet see resources being diverted from other projects to cover costs.
But their aim is to protect the status quo in the form of pristine countryside of great beauty. It’s a cause they can only hope will put funds into their coffers in the long term through tourism.
The companies seeking to build the wind farms have rather different prospects, if they can win approval for the rejected applications that is.
At that point, large sums of money would flow in their direction from a grateful Government keen to meet its international obligations on renewable energy and happy to pay handsomely for the privilege.
While that does not make wind farm proponents wrong, neither does it make for a level playing field.
There has to be a better way of deciding matters of important public interest than by declaring that those with the deepest pockets will win.

Mar 29th The Guardian "Britain seeks loophole in green energy targets" 

Britain is seeking to change the rules governing renewable energy targets to make it easier for the UK to fulfil its commitment to promote clean energy                 

Mar 28th, The Journal, "Three strikes and a clear knockout!"

March 27th, The Journal Don't let our far horizons be spoilt' say wind farm protesters.

COUNCILLORS who will today vote on three wind farm applications in Northumberland are being begged not to allow the Secret Kingdom to become a turbine landscape.
Berwick Borough Council’s planning committee is sitting all day to hear applications for seven turbines at Moorsyde, a further seven at Toft Hill and six turbines at Barmoor.
They are being recommended to allow the Moorsyde and Barmoor schemes, from Your Energy and Force 9 respectively, and to refuse the Toft Hill project, from nPower renewables.
Action groups which have conducted lengthy campaigns against the two proposals listed for approval yesterday issued last-ditch rallying calls to the councillors with whom the decisions rest, and local people.
A spokesman for the Moorsyde Action Group said: "We have done all we can to provide officers of the council and councillors with clear and substantiated evidence of the overwhelming costs of this scheme to our landscape, tourist economy and communities.
"All we can do now is hope that our elected representatives will make a decision that is in the best interests of the borough and local people.
"Their decision will affect the futures of us all. "They can throw open the gates and watch speculative developers turn the Secret Kingdom into a wind farm landscape or they can stand fast in the defence of the borough’s glorious landscape and its fiercely loyal people.
"We trust that they have the vision to match our far horizons."
Andrew Joicey, of the anti-Barmoor Save Our Unspoilt Landscape group, added: "It is absolutely vital that as many people as possible attend this public meeting, to show the planning committee members, who are all local councillors, how strongly the local people are against these huge and inappropriate wind farm applications.
"The presence of the large majority of concerned local people will help support our councillors in making their decision."                             Please rate the story click here

March 26th The Journal, Wind farm votes cast tomorrow."

WIND farm objectors are calling on councillors to reject three Northumberland turbine applications during a D-day meeting tomorrow.
Berwick Borough Council’s planning committee will tomorrow determine applications for turbines at Toft Hill, Moorsyde and Barmoor, with the former listed for refusal and the latter two for approval. The council’s use of hired planning consultants to help form recommendations to members who are deciding the fate of three wind farm bids came under fire last night.
Those recommendations have been arrived at by consultants based outside the borough, including Darlington-based solicitor Blackett Hart and Pratt, hired by the council due to its lack of staff qualified to handle such complex applications.
Last night a spokeswoman for the council said the report to its planning committee had been written by one of its own officers, who had simply used some material from outside agencies to prepare it.
But the involvement of outside planners was heavily criticised by action groups opposing the two projects which are recommended for approval.
They believe external consultants cannot fully appreciate the effect of turbines on the county in terms of tourism and landscape.

Andrew Joicey, of the Save Our Unspoilt Landscape group, which is opposing Force 9’s six turbine Barmoor scheme, said: “Reading the officer’s report, which is done by a hired-in consultant from Darlington, it would appear from his report that he has not appreciated anything like the nature of the environment in which these proposals are being put forward. He has almost suggested that there is no tourism of any consequence in the area. He seems to have suggested that there are less landscape issues than perhaps there are. Altogether, we are very disappointed with the content of the officer’s report. And one would have hoped that a local person would have appreciated the value of the countryside and have given a little bit more of an inkling about the quality of it and the way these structures might just impact on it.
The councillors themselves are local and hopefully they have read the thousands of pages of correspondence but they rely heavily on the officer’s report.”

A spokesman for the Moorsyde Action Group, opposing Your Energy’s plans for seven turbines, said: “In the case of the Moorsyde application, the use of an external consultant as acting case officer has been a source of great concern, particularly during a period of significant instability due to a lack of qualified senior staff in Berwick’s planning department. This has led to a failure to properly brief, supervise or review the consultant’s work. Within a period of 12 months, he has been nominally supervised by no fewer than five different people, two of whom were not even employees of the borough themselves. This, coupled with the particular consultant’s clear lack of knowledge and experience of applications of this scale and complexity, has, in our view, resulted in a failure to provide members with full and impartial advice.”
The Berwick council spokeswoman said: “The recommendations themselves contained within the report have been written by a qualified planner employed by the council.”
A borough councillor, who asked not to be named given the ban on candidates at May’s Northumberland council elections speaking in public ahead of the poll, last night claimed the authority uses external consultants due to the complex nature of both the applications, and determining the area’s capacity for wind power.

March 11th, The Journal, "Allowing turbines to be built, disastrous for the environment"

Fossil-fuelled power ‘can be just as clean and friendly’

THE contrasting credentials of wind power and fossil fuels came under the spotlight yesterday as experts claimed turbines are actually bad for the environment – while the Government signalled the great coal comeback.

The Journal can reveal that national air traffic control bosses are to tell a Northumberland wind farm inquiry that allowing the turbines to be built would be disastrous for the environment.

National Air Traffic Services say just one turbine would force flight paths to be changed, creating delays – and causing more fuel to be burned, increasing carbon emissions.

But Business Secretary John Hutton said coal power stations which use new technology to capture harmful emissions could be just as environmentally friendly as turbines.

Mar 6th, The Journal, "Fighter Planes may put paid to wind farms"

Mar 6th Berwick Advertiser, "Last chance to Save area from a wind turbine landscape" (Letters page)

SIR, — Last Thursday and Friday in Marygate two men were collecting signatures on pre-written letters supporting the Toft Hill wind farm application for seven 367 ft turbines at Grindon, near Norham.
I spent 45 minutes talking to ‘Jonathan’ and ‘Brian’. They would not tell me their full names or which organisation they represented. There was no name on the letters they were asking people to sign or on the banner fronting their stall. They did say they were, ‘from Mansfield’ and they did, eventually, admit that npower, the company behind the Toft Hill proposal, was paying them.
However, at no time while I was there did they tell the people they were approaching who they were or that they were working for npower. I am quite sure that most signatories thought they were expressing their support for renewables at the request of an environmental group rather than helping a multinational power conglomerate win a planning application.
A quick internet search reveals that Jonathan ‘from Mansfield’ is Jonathan Lincoln, from the Sustainable Energy Alliance (SEA) in North Wales. He is also listed as a Greenpeace organiser in Porthmadog. The SEA website has a page with a list of four wind farm proposals that, ‘SEA are currently supporting’. Interestingly, they are all npower proposals!
After his identity and activities were exposed on the Moorsyde Action Group (MAG) website (www.moorsydeactiongroup.org.uk), Jonathan emailed me to claim that he was not working for SEA while in Berwick but for a hitherto unknown organisation called ‘Alliance4Wind’. npower also told the Newcastle Journal the same story. I googled this name and got the following response: ‘Your search — Alliance4Wind — did not match any documents’. Very peculiar: an invisible activist group!
This is not the first time we have suffered the attentions of hired activists. Your Energy Ltd (YEL) were exposed on the front page of The Journal as paying a professional eco-activist from Yorkshire to try and stir up a semblance of support for the ‘Moorsyde’ application only weeks before the abortive planning meeting of December 12, 2006.
The borough have said that the planning committee are proposing to decide the wind farm applications at Barmoor, Toft Hill and ‘Moorsyde’ (between Duddo and Allerdean) at a single meeting, near the end of this month. In view of this, we confidently expect further last minute tricks from out-of-area activists and the secretive local groups that are working with developers.
It is to be hoped that council officers and members of the planning committee will judge the applications on the facts and will not be influenced by these sort of scams. Meanwhile, there is still time for your readers to write real letters based on their own views to the planning authority (see the MAG website for details).
MAG would also ask everybody to watch out for news of the planning meeting — the borough will only give the public a few days warning — and to come along and support us. At the last ‘Moorsyde’ planning meeting, Your Energy’s undercover operator brought along a group of ‘Yes-to-Wind’ activists from Yorkshire to heckle Councillors. We expect YEL and other developers to bus in many more out-of-area activists this time.
With the support of local communities, MAG and other groups have now spent over three years fighting to preserve our landscape, the main asset of our local tourist industry. Locals will have seen the small, 78m (256 ft.), turbines on the skyline behind Duns. They are on moorland with no near neighbours. We are fighting to prevent the building of 20 much bigger, 110 to 120m (360 to 367 ft.), turbines in the middle of a populated lowland (and low wind) landscape. When Scottish Borders Council were consulted on ‘Moorsyde’ they responded: ‘... this site would not be supported were the proposal to be located in the Scottish Borders, primarily by virtue of its landscape character’.
This may be our last chance save this area from being turned into a ‘wind turbine landscape’ by speculative developers. Please support us.
DON BROWNLOW,
www.moorsydeactiongroup.org.uk

Feb 27th, The Telegraph," Global warming sceptics buoyed by record cold"

The deceit behind global warming Climate debate far from over, claim senators Climate shift 'poles apart'

Feb 26th, The Telegraph, 'Landscape littered with redundant wind farms'  English countryside could be changed forever

The countryside could become a "landscape littered with redundant wind farms" within two decades, conservationists warn today.
The stark prediction comes in a vision of how the nation could look in 2026, drawn up by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
It sets out a positive blueprint for the future in which schoolchildren visit the countryside as part of the curriculum, tourism grows, farmers are paid more for organic food and conserving wildlife, and the greenbelt becomes greener.

But the charity warns that the reality could be much bleaker if land-based wind turbines are regarded as the panacea for climate change.
In the report published today Shaun Spiers, the chief executive, said: "The vision paper sees a role for onshore wind in 2026, but CPRE rejects the slide from acknowledging that climate change is the overriding threat facing the planet to the proposition that it is necessary to accept any measure claiming to mitigate it.
"A 2026 nightmare would be a landscape littered with redundant wind farms and their attendant infrastructure which had been erected to salve the national conscience for continuing to expand airports and build new roads."

The document, 'Towards a vision for the countryside', is aimed at stimulating a national debate on how the rural landscape should look in 2026 - CPRE's centenary.
It foresees a time when the countryside is regarded as the "Natural Health Service", helping to improve education and reduce obesity through more visits from children and those from the inner cities.
A revival of interest in locally-produced food and greater rural tourism could mean small towns and villages growing and more jobs.
The 2026 vision also predicts that farmers could be encouraged to reduce CO2 emissions by moving away from crops that require synthetic, oil-derived fertilisers, earning more of their stewardship of the countryside. This would lead to a renaissance for wildflowers, birds, insects and mammals that have dwindled over the previous 70 years.
Finally, the planning system would be refocused to retain the character of the countryside while encouraging access and recreation.

Bill Bryson, the writer and president of the CPRE, said: "If we can explore and understand what people want from our countryside in 20 years time, then we will be in a much better position to plan the steps to get there.
"We'll campaign on the results and seek to influence Government. But this isn't an issue that should be left to politicians. It should be debated by everyone, from farmers to business people, planners to village shop owners.
"We believe we can all take action to protect the countryside, enhance it, and promote its importance, that's why we've outlined one possible, positive vision, and set up a debates page for all views on the future of our countryside.

Feb 24th, The Observer "Record number of wind farm projects rejected.

A record number of wind farm projects were refused planning permission in Britain last year, according to new figures seen by The Observer. The average amount of time taken to decide whether to approve a project - 24 months - is also at a record high. The figures will be published by the British Wind Energy Association later this month.
They point to a growing paralysis within the UK's embryonic wind farm industry. Developers report that the Ministry of Defence, which complains that turbines interfere with its radar, has started blocking projects more actively. They also worry that the new planning bill will not help ease the logjam.
These difficulties, as well as soaring costs, seem to be putting developers off submitting new applications. Applications to build wind farms providing 1,000 megawatts of wind capacity - enough to power a city the size of Birmingham when the wind blows - were made last year. But this is less than half the size of proposals in 2006, and almost a third of what was put forward in the previous two years.
Also, plans for Britain's biggest onshore wind project - developed by British Energy and Amec - will suffer a blow this week with the publication of a report criticising the validity of the project's environmental impact assessment study.
Claims by British Energy and Amec that 181 turbines built on protected peatland on the island of Lewis off the Scottish west coast are environmentally safe assume a best-case scenario 'rather than the reality', according to academics at the University of Greenwich.
But Dave Hodkinson, director of joint-venture Lewis Wind Power, insisted that the independent ornithological consultancies it commissioned had found no objections to the 651mw project.

Feb 17th, The Telegraph, "Wind power: will it all come out in the Wash?"  (letters)
Further to Christopher Booker's new exposure of the "great wind farm scam" (February 10), the 14,000-ton Resolution, built in China, spent most of last year in the Wash putting in the bases for 54 wind turbines, and is due back soon to install the actual turbines, made in Denmark.

Feb 10th The Telegraph "The great wind scam's profitability is equalled only by its futility" Christopher Booker

It is six years since I first referred here to "the great wind scam" - the bonanza enjoyed by the developers of wind turbines, thanks to the hidden subsidy we all give them through our electricity bills. Under the Government's Renewables Obligation, they receive twice as much for such electricity as they produce as the owners of conventional power stations: a 100 per cent top-up which makes our wind energy the most heavily subsidised commodity in history.

Last week, the Financial Times finally woke up to this racket, in a series of articles explaining why wind industry profits in Britain are higher than anywhere else in Europe. But, astonishingly, the FT completely missed the other reason that this is such a scandal: namely why the amount of power we get as a result is so derisory.

The paper fell for the oldest trick in the wind propaganda book by referring to turbines' "capacity" rather than the mere 27 per cent of that figure which, with the fickleness of the wind, they actually produce. Thus the FT overstated the contribution of wind to our electricity needs by 300 per cent.

Interestingly, a victim (or perpetrator) of the same confusion is the industry's chief lobby group, the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), which accuses me of misleading my readers by suggesting that, to meet our EU target, we need to build 20,000 turbines by 2020. To obtain "38 per cent of our electricity" from wind, the BWEA claims, we need no more than 8,500 turbines.

Let me remind them of the maths. According to the latest Government figures, our average annual electricity demand is 46 gigawatts (GW), ie 46,000 megawatts (MW): 38 per cent of this is 17.5GW. Let us generously say that the installed capacity of the average new turbine, onshore or off, is 3MW. But they produce only 27 per cent of capacity, so to generate 17.5GW would require capacity of 65GW. This needs over 21,500 turbines - more than I suggested.

Since this would require us to build more than two giant turbines a day - remember that offshore turbines can be almost the height of the Eiffel Tower - at a cost of far more than £100 billion, even the BWEA must know that there is no way this could be done.

They should stick to farming their subsidies and leave the rest of us to hope we can build enough nuclear power stations, at less than a quarter of the cost, in time to keep our lights on.

Feb 5th, The Independent, "Backlogs threaten Government targets for renewable energy"

Feb 5th, The Journal, "Householders pay "green bill"

Kevin McCullough, NPower director of renewables, said: “If you did not have the RO, you would not see any wind farms being built.”

HOUSEHOLD electricity bills are being used to subsidise massive profits for wind turbine companies.The Government has overseen a scheme which sees almost £10-a-year added to every consumer’s bill to help promote renewable energy – but despite this few companies have built new wind farms and many households are still getting their power from coal burning generators.Northumberland wind farm campaigners last night said the expensive subsidies for energy companies were the real reason behind the dozens of turbines planned for the North-East. More than £580m-a-year is paid out at present and this is set to rise to more than £1.3bn by 2010 as household bills rise.

Feb 4th Financial Times, "Bonanza for old wind farms as bottlenecks hit new turbines"

Peter Atherton, head utilities analyst at Citi Investment Research, said: "It's a bonanza. Anyone who can get their nose in the trough is trying to."                                                                               

Feb 4 The Daily Mail "£1bn wind farm subsidies pump up power firm profits

"Wind farm owners insist that ...  without subsidies, no business would invest in wind power."

Inflation-busting increases in electricity prices - which were supposed to pay for a massive expansion of wind power - have boosted the profits of power companies instead, it emerged yesterday.Under a controversial Government scheme, British consumers pay £1billion a year in their fuel bills to subsidise the drive towards renewable energy.The cash is supposed to act as an incentive to companies wanting to build green generators such as wind farms or hydro-electric dams. However, because of a loophole in the system - and the vocal opposition to new turbines in the countryside - the scheme has failed to produce the expected surge in wind power. Instead, most of the money has lined the pockets of energy companies.
Energy experts yesterday warned that the "Renewable Obligation" subsidy system is "hugely flawed" and places a unfair burden on families at a time when household bills are soaring. Last year the energy watchdog Ofgem called for theRenewables Obligation to be scrapped. "It is a very expensive way of providing support for renewables," said regulator Andrew Wright.
Energy expert Peter Atherton, from financial analysts Citi Investment Research, added: "It's a bonanza. Anyone who can get their nose in the trough is trying to."
Under European plans published last month, Britain must produce 40 per cent of its electricity from green sources by 2020. Today it produces less than 5 per cent. To meet the target the UK would need to build around two wind turbines every day for the next 12 years .
To encourage more green energy, the Government launched the Renewables Obligation scheme. Each year, power suppliers must buy a fixed proportion of electricity from green sources. If they fail to meet the target they pay a fine to Government.
That money is then split between the owners of existing wind farms.

The cost of the Renewables Obligation is passed on to consumer in their fuel bills and is rising sharply each year. In 2006 it was £600million. By 2020 it will cost consumers £3billion.
Yet despite the spiralling fuel bills, the amount of green electricity produced in the UK is rising slowly. In 2005 just 4.2 per cent of the UK's electricity was renewable.
In 2006, the last year for which official figures were available, it was 4.6 per cent.
Although the money is being passed on to wind farm owners, lengthy planning delays have held up many wind farms. In 2007 an extra 427 megawatts of wind capacity were built Britain - compared-with 630 in 2006 and 447 in 2005, according to the British Wind Energy Association.
Many of the small wind farmers have been bought up by the major energy companies. RWE Npower is one of the biggest owners of in the UK and is though to make £ 90million a year from wind.
Ministers have pledged to reform the planning system to make it easier for new wind farms to spring up.
"The scheme is designed to encourage investment in renewable energy by making things like wind farms more profitable," said a spokesman for the Department for Business.
"It should come as a surprise that there a cost associated with this. Renewables are more expensive, but they play a key role in tackling climate change."
Wind farm owners insist that their profits are not excessive - and that without subsidies, no business would invest in wind power.
Gordon Edge, of the British Wind Energy Association, said the convoluted planning system was causing the delays.
"It's much more difficult to get planning permission for wind developments than for developments like roads, motorways or other infrastructure," he said.    

Feb 5th Daily Mail "Blowing money on a Fantasy " 

Feb 4th The Times "Wind Farms a threat to national security"                                                                         

Feb 2, The Herald, "Wind farms are destroying our famed scenery."                                                                         

Feb 1, Press and Journal "WINDFARM DEVELOPERS 'DUPE' PUBLIC"

Developers seeking support for windfarm plans often dupe members of the public into believing turbines will save the planet - while failing to mention potentially serious side-effects, according to a new report.
The Views of Scotland (VoS) pressure group believes people often put their names forward in support of developments without fully understanding the technology. The group claims that some developments endanger rare species and natural carbon stores in peatland.
The group argues that modern methods of touting for support for wind over nuclear power amount to "a subversion of the planning system in a gung-ho attempt to secure consent whatever the cost".
The VoS report - Strange bedfellows: Big Energy, Cash and the Green Lobby - claims developers are increasingly recruiting activists including Greenpeace members to back planning applications.
Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr said: "Wind power is one of the best available tools for humanity starting to tackle climate change. " We support most windfarm applications that we scrutinise, but this is not blanket. Greenpeace is almost unique in being funded entirely by individual members and so is totally independent of companies and Government."

VoS chairman David Bruce, however, argued that people "ignorant of serious environmental risks are being persuaded, often unintentionally, to sign letters of support for specific planning applications."
He said the practice "smacks of new age colonialism by people travelling up and down the country seeking to impose their will by decree, regardless of the environmental cost."
He added: "There was a time when Greenpeace fought to expose and put a stop to this kind of oppressive corporate bullying. It did not cover it up and it certainly did not campaign on its behalf. It does now."
Jonathan Lincoln, founder of the Sustainable Energy Alliance, which is also criticised in the report, vehemently denied that he had duped anyone into signing petitions to aid planning applications while shielding wider environmental issues.
He said: "I provide information about a windfarm and discuss it in detail. We provide OS (Ordnance Survey) maps, full details of the application and are as open and honest as we can be, including the impact on the environment and the avian populations, before we decide to back an application."

Jan 27th, The Sunday Times, "Wind farms turn huge profit with help of subsidies"

LAVISH subsidies and high electricity prices have turned Britain’s onshore wind farms into an extraordinary moneyspinner, with a single turbine capable of generating £500,000 of pure profit per year.

According to new industry figures, a typical 2 megawatt (2MW) turbine can now generate power worth £200,000 on the wholesale markets - plus another £300,000 of subsidy from taxpayers.
Since such turbines cost around £2m to build and last for 20 or more years, it means they can pay for themselves in just 4-5 years and then produce nothing but profit.
The lucrative outlook has led to a surge in planning applications for new windfarms. There are already 165 wind farms operating 1,944 turbines in Britain but another 34 are under construction, a further 118 have planning consent and 220 are under consideration, according to new figures from the British Wind Energy Association.
If they are all built it would mean up to 4,000 more turbines being constructed across Britain - a prospect that is also generating a wave of protest.

Around 140 groups have been set up around the country to oppose wind farm projects, citing fears of noise and light flicker from the rotating blades and the impact the turbines will have on the landscape. John Webley is chairman of the Kentish Weald Action Group against wind turbines in rural Kent, whose 200 members are fighting plans for a 415ft turbine planned near the village of Marden and financed by HgCapital, a City investment firm. He said: “This would ruin a beautiful rural landscape and is far too close to homes whose residents’ lives would be ruined and properties lose value.”

Some experts question whether wind farms give good value for money. Among them is Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, who calculates that it costs consumers up to £510 for each tonne of CO2 emissions avoided through wind energy.
“The level of subsidy for onshore wind farms is very high and it distorts the market, making it more attractive to invest there than in other technologies like solar power,” he said.
Ofgem is also concerned. “We calculate that renewable energy subsidies will add £60 to consumer bills this year and that will keep rising,” said a spokesman.
Defenders of renewables point out that wind turbines are a relatively new technology facing an entrenched fossil fuel industry and so need help to get going.
Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity, which has 12 small wind farms, said: “The reality is that climate change is the biggest threat humanity has faced. We need every bit of green energy we can get and those who say otherwise are simply wrong and selfish.”

A crucial issue for turbine profitability is the so-called load factor – the proportion of power generated compared with the theoretical maximum. According to government statistics, the average load factor for turbines in 2006 was 27.4%, meaning a typical 2MW turbine actually produced only 0.54MW on average.
The subsidy system means, however, that turbines can make a profit even when they are operating at very low load factors.

The worst performing turbine in Britain is said to have a load factor of just 7%, meaning it produces a fourteenth of the power it was designed for. Two former senior Ofgem executives have cast doubt on claims by energy companies that the recent 15% increase in household bills is due to the higher cost of wholesale gas and electricity.
The executives, who left only recently, say Ofgem has been far too weak. They point out that the wholesale market price of energy is largely irrelevant to the big six companies because they tend to supply their own energy or have long-term deals with power generators. One said: “There is a problem in the wholesale markets which Ofgem has failed to get to grips with. The wholesale prices don’t represent what the energy companies are actually paying.”

25th Jan, BBC news "Massive wind farm 'turned down'

       

Plans to build one of Europe's biggest wind farms on the Isle of Lewis are set to be turned down, BBC Scotland understands.

12th Jan, The Journal "Safety Fears as Turbines Toppled"

CAMPAIGNERS are welcoming an inquiry into the safety of wind turbines after two came crashing down.
The manufacturer behind some of the largest wind turbines planned for use in the North-East is conducting an internal review to find why two of its structures buckled in high winds and collapsed.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched an investigation but is awaiting the results of the company’s own review before it decides what action to take.
The first turbine collapsed in Scotland last November, followed by a second collapse near Dalston, Cumbria, last week. That turbine was at Hesket Newmarket, west of the M6 motorway, half way between Carlisle and Penrith. The turbines, manufactured by Vestas, are the same model as the six in use at the Sunderland Nissan site.
A further six Vestas turbines are planned for the Barmoor site near Berwick, Northumberland.
The machines are thought to be the only turbines to have collapsed in the UK.
Wind farm campaigner John Ferguson, from Northumberland group Save Our Unspoilt Landscape, welcomed the inquiry.
He said: “If there is a risk, then it is important we find out now rather than when the turbines are in operation.
“The British Wind Energy Association and others seem to brush over the risk here, but these are serious safety concerns.
“How long before the renewable energy industry is subject to the same public scrutiny as other industries?”
Berwick Council is currently considering an application by Force 9 Energy to install six 110.5-metre turbines at Barmoor.
A council spokeswoman said the turbines proposed were subject to change and she would not comment further on the Vestas inquiry. After the Cumbria collapse the British Wind Energy Association, which represents 98% of UK wind energy firms, pledged to help the HSE and abide by any decisions reached. The 11-tonne Cumbrian turbine had been in operation for 19 years.
The collapse came just two months after the Scottish turbine at a wind farm in Argyll and Bute “bent in half” during strong winds.
Scottish Power, which runs the site, switched off 26 turbines for 14 days while it investigated the collapse. The two incidents involved the V47 turbine, which is the subject of the immediate HSE concerns.
An HSE spokesman said: “The manufacturer has informed us they are looking into this and the HSE will act on their findings.
“This is very much an ongoing investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further. We will await their findings and then Government scientists will look into it further.”
The Journal attempted to contact Vestas via its press office in Denmark, but a spokesman was not available to comment.
Force 9 Energy was repeatedly approached for comment on the safety issue but was not available yesterday.
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Venerable machine
THE Cumbrian turbine was the region’s oldest and its collapse is thought to be the first such incident in England. The turbine fell on January 4, landing alongside a quiet country road in the Hesket Newmarket area.The 100ft turbine weighed 11 tonnes and had been in regular use throughout its 19-year history. No one was hurt when it collapsed at 11.30am.
After the Cumbria crash the British Wind Energy Association said it was the first it had heard of.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Burning blades amazed drivers
THE latest safety concerns are not the first time the Vestas have come under scrutiny.
In December 2005, staff at the Nissan car plant near Sunderland watched as a turbine continued to turn while fire blazed across its blades.
The turbine had been leaking oil and when engineers switched it back on, the problem they thought they had solved caused a fire that could be seen for miles around.
Hundreds of motorists on the A19 watched as the carbon fibre rotor blades caught fire and broke off. Firefighters who tackled the blaze said they had received more than 200 calls. Witnesses said the turbine had looked like a giant, flaming Catherine wheel. The turbine was replaced the following year.
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Editorial: Fast answers are needed on turbines
WHATEVER the reasons turn out to be for the collapse of two wind turbines in recent months, these events represent a public relations own goal by the industry.
Most people are aware that a number of turbines have been beset by technical problems as they have mushroomed around the country.
That, frankly, was to be expected with engineering which comes hand in hand with this relatively new technology.But for two of them to simply fall down in high winds is something very few people would have thought possible.
There are now two separate inquiries going on into the events which have taken place in Scotland and Cumbria.
The Health and Safety Executive has begun inquiries, as has the manufacturer.
It is in everyone’s interest to have this issue assessed and properly addressed as soon as possible.
Controversial as they are, wind farms are a multi-million pound industry and, if there is a problem, we have to know about it now.
This particular piece of machinery is the same model as the six currently sited at the Sunderland Nissan plant and six are planned for the Barmoor site near Berwick, Northumberland. The British Wind Energy Association, representing 98% of UK wind energy firms, has pledged to help the HSE and abide by any decisions reached. That is to be welcomed. But speed is of the essence.
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Journal Letters:  "Will this ‘progress’ turn full circle"      

10 Jan 2008, BBC Newsnight, govt minister " BY 2010 the Renewables Obligation will be getting £1Billion a year in subsidy" To read about ROCs and more info on how these subsidies work see articles below  (e.g. Sept 3 onwards) and bottom of home page 

Berwick Advertiser letters "Turbines unreliable"...........................    

7th Jan, The Telegraph, "Home wind turbines 'too weak' to turn on light.
Wind turbines fitted to people's homes may not even be generating enough electricity to power a light bulb, a major study into wind power has revealed.
The report found that homeowners may be being misled by inaccurate official estimates about how strong winds in their area are, and that they may be up to one third slower than forecast, meaning they generate less electricity than previously thought.
At worst, a wind turbine may take 15 years to generate enough "clean energy" to compensate for its manufacture, according to the study, which is based on the output of 24 sites around the country over 64,000 hours and supported by the Government and the industry body, the British Wind Energy Association.
The news will disappoint David Cameron, who led the trend for "micro-wind" this year when he had a £3,000 green energy generator fitted to the side of his west London home. The turbine later had to be removed, reportedly because the builders had installed it wrongly.
Encraft, an environmental consultancy running the project, said wind power results were worst in urban and suburban areas than in high-rise and costal areas, where wind speeds are higher.

1st Jan, The Times "Land of pointless propellers"

27th Dec, Berwick Advertiser letters "Staggered at the height " and extract of email to SOUL (See article below)

We could see Crystal Rigg as well as the Barmoor, Moorsyde and Toft Hill Blimps. I was STAGGERED at the height of the nearest Toft Hill blimp. I thought that I had a fairly good idea of how tall the turbines would be but was devastated to realise that I had vastly underestimated! If given planning permission, turbines will destroy our landscape and drive locals and tourists away. I can only imagine the flicker effect as the sun rises behind the Moorsyde and Toft hill turbines, which will face us in the prevailing winds. We will then endure the flash of the blades as the sun moves into the west. The flash effect from the domestic turbine at Buckie House is like a strobe light in sunshine and this is only one, tiny turbine. God help North Northumberland! I hope that the attached photos illustrate my point.
Mick Plunkett, Harper Ridge, Cornhill on Tweed

24 Dec, Press Assn.  "Tallest wind turbine planned"

Plans for a wind farm which includes the country's tallest turbine will be given the go-ahead in the New Year, it has been reported.
Councillors in Northumberland look set to give the green light to the seafront development at Blyth Harbour for seven huge turbines, with the largest one measuring 163 metres from base to tip - three times the height of Nelson's Column.
The development would replace the nine existing turbines which stand just 45 metres high and have been operating since 1993, but whose technology has become outdated.
The new, bigger turbines, most of which will stand 125 metres tall, will take the place of the existing windmills which are situated on a pier stretching into the North Sea.
The biggest would be placed near the village of Cambois - to the anger of some local residents.
The wind turbine plans were submitted to Wansbeck Council in July, and according to the Journal newspaper, planning officials are recommending councillors give their approval at a meeting next week.
Forecasts state the development will produce enough power for 11,600 homes, and will cover around 10% of Northumberland's renewable energy target.

13 Dec, The Times, "Did I ever think it would be fun?"

...Asked what he had personally done to help the environment, Mr Brown said: “Very quietly we have put solar panels on our home in Scotland quite some time ago. We have been operating with solar power for some time”. Previously, his office has refused to discuss this.

Mr Brown’s Scottish home is in Fife, which is not known as a sun trap. He said: “The irony is my initial instinct was to have wind turbines. We are in a hill in an exposed area but I was persuaded by people who know about these things that even in that area — surrounded by massive winds and storms — solar power was a better way of generating electricity. It has been successful. (For more coverage of this story see  home page)

12 Dec, The Journal, "Blimp protest over turbines"

ANTI-WIND farm protesters in Northumberland yesterday flew blimps at three proposed development locations to coincide with a planners’ site visit.

Save our Unspoilt Landscape (Soul) and the Moorsyde Action Group (Mag) flew balloons at Barmoor, Toft Hill and Moorsyde, all in close proximity in Berwick borough, where three separate wind farms are proposed to be built.

The blimps were flown at the exact height as the proposed turbines as Berwick Borough Council’s development control committee undertook site visits at all three locations before members determine the applications together early in the New Year. Soul member Amanda Worlock, who lives at Western House, Lowick near the Barmoor site, said: “We have managed to get flying permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to have the three blimps flying simultaneously so you can get a broad view as you are driving along of three blimps flying at the height the turbines will be.

“We are hoping it will give them (the councillors) an idea of cumulative impact.” Soul says the balloons, all orange and bearing the slogan No to Turbines, are visible from the likes of Cheviot, Berwick, Kyloe and Wooler. One was borrowed from campaigners fighting npower renewables’ plans to erect 18 125 metre turbines at nearby Middlemoor in Alnwick district, which was recently the subject of a public inquiry. The blimps will be in the sky again on Saturday as protesters aim to display them to the largest audience possible.

SOUL was set up to oppose Force 9’s plans to erect six 110.5-metre turbines at Barmoor while Mag is contesting Your Energy’s application to put seven 110 metre turbines at Moorsyde. npower renewables is also seeking to site seven 112 metre turbines at Toft Hill.

The borough council is planning to decide all three applications together at the same meeting early in the New Year.

10 Dec, BBC News "Wind could power all UK homes" Up to 7,000 turbines may be installed offshore to boost wind energy 60-fold by 2020.     

8th December, The Independent
The Ministry of Defence have been accused of shooting down Gordon Brown's plans for tackling global warming by opposing wind farms across Britain. The MoD has opposed most of the proposals on the ground that they will interfere with air defence radar, and all have resulted in delays, permission being refused, public inquiries, or in one case the withdrawal of the planning application. The MoD's opposition runs counter to the target set by the Prime Minister for Britain to produce up to 40 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 to combat climate change.
A Commons written answer by the Defence minister Derek Twigg has revealed that the MoD has opposed 28 planning applications for wind farms between 2005 and 2007.
Harry Cohen, the Labour MP, who obtained the answer, said: "It just shows that one hand of the government doesn't know what the other is doing."
Most of the planning cases are still pending. They include Hare Hill in East Ayrshire, where the MoD objected to a wind farm on the ground that it would restrict low-flying training.

Sat 24th New York Times, also International Herald Tribune, "Debating the Merits of Energy From Air"