Should consumers be subsidising wind farm construction? Michael Jefferson, professor of International Business and Sustainability at the London Metropolitan Business School, believes the system has gone too far.
A great deal of acrimony has been stirred up by those wishing to place huge wind turbines in the countryside. Those whose views suffer severe intrusion, whose sleep is disturbed and property values undermined can justifiably be furious. Yet wind turbines, despite the intermittency of wind, can contribute positively to electricity generation and carbon emissions avoidance. So where should we draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not?
The Sunday Times has opened up the debate by pointing out that far too many wind energy developments in the UK under-perform in relation to what is claimed for them. This means we have to compare their theoretical maximum output with what they actually achieve - their so-called capacity factor. However the numbers here can be confusing. For example RenewableUK, the industry body, claims on its website: “Over the course of a year windfarms typically generate about 30% of the theoretical maximum output.”
The government in its main planning document for renewable energy goes further. Its main renewables planning document says: “Capacity factors in the UK may generally fall anywhere between 20% and 50%, with 30% being typical in the UK.” However the real range of performance is even wider than this, according to data released by Ofgem, the government’s energy markets regulator, which is also the official source of data for wind turbine performance.
The Ofgem data showed that in 2007 only three onshore wind developments in the UK (out of 152 operating throughout the year) achieved 50% load factor. That's about 2% of the total. Meanwhile 26 developments, or 17% of the total, achieved less than 20% of their maximum capacity.
Even in 2008, a very windy year, only two developments (out of 162) achieved 50%, while 23 developments achieved under 20% (14.2% of the total). The worst performing wind farms in both years achieved under 8%. This means that British power consumers are subsidising a lot of wind farms that produce relatively little power but which have a big impact on the landscape.
This raises two powerful questions about those wind developments with low capacity factors. Why should electricity customers subsidise poorly performing developments through the Renewable Obligation (ROC) scheme, especially when this roughly doubles the cost of every megawatt hour of electricity produced? Surely poorer performing developments should receive little or no subsidy. Yet developers or operators of even poorly-performing ones can expect to receive over £200,000 of our money per turbine per year.
The second question is: who benefits? A Scottish landowner who is prepared to have 48 turbines on his land will see the developer getting a total income of around £30 million a year, but he will be lucky to get more than £700,000. A Northumbrian one, prepared to have 10 turbines, sees the developer getting £7 million a year, but will receive about £150,000 a year.
Meanwhile residents living near these developments will see property values suffer and perhaps have their sleep disturbed by noise from the turbine blades swishing through the air. But even though they are suffering all these impacts they get nothing in compensation.
The ‘toffs’ and landowners do make decent money out of these deals, but the real beneficiaries are the developers and operators who are handed huge rewards from us electricity customers through government policy. In really windy areas this may have some merit, but in those parts of Britain where average wind speeds are low, such as Central England, there is little justification for such lavish support, especially when treasured landscapes are damaged.
Michael Jefferson©
First published in The Times: 04-10.
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