UK’s Renewable Energy Report Causes Controversy

The UK’s Renewable Energy Foundation’s recent online report on renewable energy performance in the UK has provoked a storm of controversy. The report’s authors interpret their findings in a way that RenewableUK find biased, although there is no accusation that the figures themselves are wrong.  Here are some of the key findings:

Wind and solar farms in the West country (mainly Cornwall, Devon and Dorset) produced 9% of the counties’ electrical energy at a cost of about £35 million a year in state subsidy.

Some of the biggest and most controversial schemes in the region have produced less electricity than initially anticipated by developers.

The giant, 35 acres, 6.8MW project at Crinacott Farm, Holsworthy, in Devon, had the productivity of about 9.5% during a recent 12-month period, producing about 5,700 MWh of energy, enough for about 1,500 domestic households.

Endurance E 3120 50kW nturbine at Westcott wind farm1 UKs Renewable Energy Report Causes Controversy

Solar panel arrays in Devon and Cornwall produce around 14%, REF’s new database reveals and receive about £20m a year in subsidy.

Fullabrook Down wind farm, which is the second-largest onshore wind farm in England, has productivity since commissioning of 25%, generating electricity equivalent to about 2% of the electrical energy needs of the two counties, while taking subsidies of about £5.5m a year.

The combined output of all solar and wind power in Devon and Cornwall comes to 670-gigawatt hours of electrical energy per year, which is equivalent to about 0.2% of the UK’S consumption and just over half of the total electricity needs of the city of Plymouth, which consumes 1,000 GWh per year.

Constable REF1 UKs Renewable Energy Report Causes Controversy
John Constable, Director REF

John Constable, director for REF and some would say going beyond his brief, claimed that the figures raised questions about whether consumers were getting value for money and said that the subsidies were “unaffordable”.

But new figures from the National Grid for October showed that wind power smashed previous UK energy generation records. Wind energy hit a record high on October 20, providing a 24% daily share of the UK’s electricity needs, beating the previous record of 22% set in August, said the industry body RenewableUK. UK wind energy’s share of the monthly electricity mix was 12.3%, which beat October 2013’s share of 8% and is close to the December 2013 record of 13%.

And let’s not forget that the official statistics show that wind power generated more than nuclear for 11 full days over last month, partly because energy giant EDF shut down four reactors in the summer.

Jennifer Webber director trade association RenewableUK 229x3001 UKs Renewable Energy Report Causes Controversy
Jennifer Webber

Jennifer Webber, RenewableUK’s director of external affairs, said:

“These figures shine a light on the full extent of wind’s powerful performance over October. To beat nuclear for seven days straight and 11 days overall in a month, is unprecedented. We saw August set new records for generation and October has followed hot on its heels”.

Heysham Power Station 300x1491 UKs Renewable Energy Report Causes Controversy

Against this positive view, Dr. Philip Bratby said developers of wind turbines exaggerate the output by often as much as 100%. Whi is he? A retired scientist in the nuclear power industry and a member of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). So no surprises there, really.  He said:

“Developers try to hide the details of how poorly wind turbines and solar farms actually perform, by using the equivalent number of houses powered.”

This is obviously because the wind and the sun are not constantly “on”. Therefore when saying how much electricity a particular wind farm or solar power array can produce, it is usual to use the term “capable of powering up to x number of homes”. There is nothing wrong with that and to claim that the claims for possible power production are misleading is a misconception of the nature of wind and sun power.  Is nuclear power, by comparison, 100% reliable and constant? No. recently there were unscheduled shut-downs of reactors due to faults, such as the Heysham-1 plant below.