As UK’s coalition Government approaches the end of its tenure, the issue of wind power looks like becoming a key issue for voters. It looks like being a right ding-dong:
In the blue corner- the Conservative Party of David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has warned that any move to curb the number of onshore wind farms will result in higher electricity prices for consumers.
In the red corner- Conservative party chairman, Grant Shapps has hinted that a moratorium of onshore wind farms will be in their election manifesto.
You can’t have it both ways! Just consider the effects if the Conservatives do indeed put a stop on the creation of any more wind farms in England and Wales. It will make Britain a much less attractive place to invest in wind power and ultimately lead to an increase in electricity bills. But that economic sense is blown to the four winds when it comes to the need to please voters in the Conservative rural areas, where large swathes of potential Conservative voters see wind turbines as a blight and want an end to them onshore. The worry of an increase in fuel prices is not just something dreamed up by the wind lobby. The influential Royal Academy of Engineering published a report last week saying that a cap on onshore turbines would definitely lead to an increase in electricity bills.
Professor Richard Green is an economist at Imperial College London and one of the independent working group that produced the report. he said that the net result of a moratorium on onshore wind farms would mean that offshore wind turbines wozul dbe more expensive and the shortfall could only be recovered through higher electricity bills.
The report also found that up to a fifth of the UK’s electricity needs could be supplied by wind power, without any significant upgrades to the grid. At the moment, wind only provides a little over half of what it could provide.
Because of sensible investment in the US, wind power provides nearly 5% of all its energy needs and it is cheaper compared to gas and coal. But it’s not all doom and gloom for wind power. At the end of last month, the offshore wind energy sector received a significant boost when Siemens and Associated British Ports announced a £310m investment in wind turbine factories here that will create 1,000 jobs.
But there is some confusion and conflicting reports about the effect of wind turbines on the value of homes near to them. Last week, a report from the London School of Economics found that wind farms can decrease the value of homes within a 2km radius by as much as 12 per cent. However, this came just days after a separate study from the Centre for Economics and Business Research and RenewableUK showed that there was no link between wind farms and house prices!
What about fracking? The public have yet to be convinced this is a safe alternative. The Conservatives will have to decide which way they will go on onshore wind power. Let’s hope that a cheap vote-winning stunt of putting a moratorium on onshore wind farms will not appear in their election manifesto.
