Wind Energy and renewable energy blog

Centrica CEO Doubts Offshore Wind Farm Delivery

The CEO of British Gas owned company Centrica has warned that the delivery of a 3rd round of UK offshore wind farms is “questionable”.

Centrica CEO Sam Laidlaw told Timesonline today that the company has doubts as to whether the proposed 32 Gigawatts of offshore wind farms around UK shores would ever go ahead. Despite benefiting from cross party support, the Round 3 offshore wind energy programme is set to be challenged by spiralling costs.

Laidlaw said,

Conservative Proposals for ‘Open Source’ Planning

Newly announced Conservative proposals for the UK Planning system would make it harder for wind energy companies to build wind farms without the support of immediate neighbours.

The Tories say that on-shore wind farms are not appropriate in all settings: local community consent is vital, and applications will need to be considered in the light of the possible impact on the local environment. This according to the Conservatives means allowing communities to be beneficiaries of onshore wind development. The Conservative wind farm policy is to allow communities that choose to host wind farms to keep the business rates they generate for six years. They are also “examining how community ownership of wind turbines can be introduced” despite many wind energy companies already operating community share option schemes at working wind farms.

The Conservatives believe that this is ‘fresh thinking’ and say that if they get into power this year they will actively support getting more of our energy from renewable sources, including both on-shore and off-shore wind.

Advertising Standards Agency Rule Against Wind Farm Protestors

The UK Advertising Agency (ASA) has this week ordered anti- wind farm campaigners to stop using misleading material in their leaflets.

The leaflet produced by a campaign group ‘Vale Villagers Against Scottish Power’ was designed to create fear in communities surrounding a proposed wind farm site in Warwickshire, England.

New Wind Turbine Blade Factory for North East England

A new wind turbine blade testing factory is set to be constructed near Newcastle according to an announcement by Clipper Windpower this week. The news has been warmly welcolmed after the recent Vestas blade factory closure on the Isle of Wight.

The 4000 m2 factory will be part funded by an offshore wind technology grant of over £4m (over US $6m) from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is expected to be constructed by September of this year.

The North East has suffered from the recession acutely but the new wind turbine facility is expected to help the region become an important economic hub for offshore wind energy.

Conservative Planning Green Paper – Power to Which People?

“Power to the People” is the new Conservative catchphrase. The catchphrase forms the basis of a new Conservative green paper on devolution and decentralisation “giving power back to local communities”. The paper outlines proposals for local government spending, planning and housing, local regulatory regimes and local referendums.

You’d be forgiven for thinking, given the latest expenses scandal, that the Tories would be treading carefully when it comes to the accountability of elected representatives. However the new Conservative green paper proposes abolishing the Standards Board who currently monitor the behaviour of local councillors.

Climate Challenges at Canadian Wind Farm Site

Wind energy companies are treading new ground this month by trialling wind turbines at extreme low temperatures in Canada.

The Wind Energy TechnoCentre is the developer and owner of a new 2 turbine trial project known as “Site Nordique Experimental en EolienCORUS” (SNEEC)”.

Wind turbine manufacturer REpower and wind farm company RES Canada have now completed the construction of the 2 Megawatt turbines in the Gaspé region of the country. The trial is a forerunner to a much larger wind farm comprising 477 wind turbines in Québec.

The REpower MM92 turbines have been installed in the town of Gaspé, near Rivière-au-Renard. The SNEEC project uses two special cold climate versions (CCV) of the REpower MM92.

Scottish Power Doubles Installed Wind Energy

ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) nearly doubled its electricity output during 2009, producing over 1.7 million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity from its 23 operational windfarms. The rise of 43.8% on 2008 figures meant that SPR produced enough green electricity to power the average annual needs of over 375,000 homes.

Last year, the company completed the construction of Europe’s largest onshore wind farm, Whitelee, near Glasgow. The wind farm extends over an area the size of the city of Glasgow itself.

The Scottish Government has also granted planning consent for two extensions to Whitelee, which will increase the maximum output from the windfarm to 593MW. In addition other wind farm companies including Coriolis Energy and Community Wind Power are proposing further Whitelee extensions.

Climate Change Campaigners Call for Action Against UKIP MEP

Environmental campaigners have called for action against UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom after his comments ‘glorifying terrorism’.

The MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber appears in a YouTube video congratulating the French secret service for bombing the Greenpeace ship ‘Rainbow Warrior’ in New Zealand in 1985. Portugese Greenpeace photographer, Fernando Pereira, was killed in the attack. In the video climate change denier Mr Bloom says that he does not usually have anything good to say about the French but in the case of the Rainbow Warrier bombing “Vive La France”.

The MEP’s comments came during the UN Climate Summit last December. The YouTube film was made in Copenhagen harbour, where Mr Bloom is seen posing by the Greenpeace boat.

Yes2Wind Revolutionised

A wind energy support website started by Greenpeace, Friends of the the Earth (FOE) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been revolutionised further to the site coming under ‘new management’ last year.

The Yes 2Wind website was set up many years ago as an information hub for wind farms in the UK. Supporters could use the facility to find out the location of their nearest wind farm proposal. In May of last year, the original NGOs approved the free of charge aquisition of the Yes2Wind domain by yes2wind limited. The new team is made up of directors with a history of involvement in the wind sector. Yes2Wind Directors say that the aim of the company has always been to finance and resource the project in order to enable it to achieve its original objectives of providing information to wind energy supporters. Active co-operation with NGOs and local support groups is also an integral part of these objectives.

Storm Brews Over UK Electricity Needs

Electricity regulator ‘Ofcom’ announced this week that there is doubt over the energy market delivering sustainable electricity supplies for British needs.

Ofgem blames the global financial crisis, tough environmental targets, increasing gas import depency and the closure of ageing power stations.

In response to this discovery the Regulator recommends ‘far reaching energy market reforms’. Reform options have been put forward for further consultation and include a centralised renewable energy market and a central buyer of energy.

Ofgem’s Chief Exec Alistair Buchanan said:

Wind Energy Protesters Dirty Tricks Campaign

Anti-wind farm campaigners were caught red handed faking letters of objection to a wind farm the BBC revealed this week.

The local planning authority in central England discovered the fraudsters after writing to acknowledge the objections. According to Harborough Council, nearly 100 people responded saying they had not written the letters. Harborough Council are ‘reviewing their processes’ as a result of the revelations.

The Gartree Wind Farm comprises 3 turbines proposed on an airfield to the west of the town of Market Harborough. It was refused by local councillors last week. Community wind farm company Energy4All expressed its disappointment over the reasons for refusing the 3 wind turbines.

Energy4All’s John Malone said “We and our many supporters are obviously disappointed not to have won approval at the first attempt particularly as we felt objections were already addressed….We, together with the Council, also seem to have been the victim of a dirty tricks campaign. The Council has received many letters of objection to our proposals purporting to be from individuals, who when contacted by the Council were concerned to state that they had sent no such letter. We understand that the police are looking into this, and suggest it is symptomatic of a range of false allegations and the myths perpetrated by a small number of protesters.”

Excitement over Green Energy Fixed Payment Rate

The UK wind energy sector, householders and community groups have welcomed new fixed electricity payment tariffs for small scale renewable energy technologies announced today. The UK government is set to put in place the ‘feed in’ tariffs for electricity produced by renewable energy projects of up to 5 Megawatts (MW) capacity.

From 1st April this year people and companies who install renewable energy generators of 5 MW or under will receive the guaranteed payments for each kWh of green electricity they produce.

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said:

“The guarantee of getting an income on top of saving on energy bills will be an incentive to householders and communities wanting to make the move to low carbon living.

“The feed-in tariff will change the way householders and communities think about their future energy needs, making the payback for investment far shorter than in the past.

“It will also change the outlook for a range of industries, in particular those in the business of producing and installing small scale low carbon technology.”