BRITISH WILL BUILD WIND DESPITE NAYSAYERS

Americans may not recognize this debate. It's not between those who want wind energy and those who do not. It's between those who want wind energy to work better and those who say it soon will. Perhaps the critics’ hidden agenda is advocacy of some other type of energy. They are unlikely to make that point with this weak attack. As the Energy Minister says, wind energy is now a part of the country’s power mix.

Wind farms ‘not in windy places’; The government is paying hundreds of millions of pounds to subsidise wind farms that are not economically viable, it has been claimed
August 30, 2007 (BBC News)

WHO
Michael Jefferson, World Renewable Energy Network (WREN); Maria McCaffery, CEO, British Wind Energy Association (BWEA); Jim Oswald, engineering consultant; Malcolm Wicks, Energy Minister;

They certainly appear to be spreading the sites around. No doubt some are better than others. (click to enlarge)

WHAT
WREN claims government incentives drive wind energy builders to develop wind farms where wind “load factors” are inadequate to generate sufficient electricity to make the projects economically viable. BWEA responds that this is an empty charge because incentives are scaled to electricity production. The government is looking for solutions and planning more wind energy installations.

WHEN
The British government is incentivizing wind installations in pursuit of meeting the EU goal of 20% electricity from renewables by 2020.

WHERE
- WREN claims wind farms in the Midlands and Home Counties exemplify installations that should not have built because of inadequate wind resources.
- In a separate objection, WREN and others criticize installations done in Northern Scotland because their output has not been linked to the national grid.

WHY
- The incentives debated are part of Britain’s “Renewables Obligation Certificate Scheme” that rewards companies that do the wind installations.
- Wind is presently provides 0.5% of Britain’s electricity.
- The more neutral position blames poor wind farm output on wind’s intermittency and warns that intermittency may cause power failures if grid managers fail to manage it. WREN says better siting of installations might negate intermittency. BWEA says turbines produce some electricity 85% of the time.
- BWEA answers criticism that wind installations have not been linked to the national grid by simply promising they will be.
- More offshore wind farms and wave-tide-current installations are planned by the present government.

Great ad campaign.

QUOTES
- Jefferson: "We should be putting our money where the wind is and that is quite often not where the development pressure is…”
- McCaffery: "Nobody in their right mind, not a developer and not the government, would support the building of a wind farm where the wind speeds are not high enough to generate a viable amount of electricity. It's absolute nonsense…The only pertinent figure is the amount of electricity actually supplied and there is a fixed amount of subsidy per unit of energy. You are only subsidised for what you produce."
- Oswald: "The volatility thing is a bit like driving your car and I say to you, 'OK, here's a green car, it uses absolutely no fossil fuel but you can only use it when it's windy…It's the power swings that worry us. Over a 20-hour period you can go from almost 100% wind output to 20%."
- Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks: “…wind energy [is] an important part of Britain's energy mix for the future…”