December 11th 2007
UK govt wind plan costly, misguided - Ecotricity
The British government's latest plan to power every UK home with offshore turbines is a costly fantasy and ignores the potential of onshore wind, the CEO of green power company Ecotricity said in an interview.
On Monday the government said Britain could have up to 33 gigawatts of turbines churning out carbon-free power around its blustery coastline by 2020. The target, enough to supply every home in Britain with clean energy, was met with widespread scepticism over cost, grid management issues, and the difficulty in obtaining enough turbines and labour in a market already struggling to meet demand. Dale Vince, the founder of green power company Ecotricity, said the government was no more likely to make its latest green power dream a reality than to reach earlier, seemingly unattainable targets.
"It's a fantastic ambition to have...but I don't think it will happen. It's a massive target...one third of the country powered from offshore," Vince said. "I think it's a mistake to focus all that thought and effort on offshore wind because there is so much more we can do onshore without extra cost." The government has previously set itself a target of getting 10 percent of Britain's electricity from renewable sources, especially onshore wind, by 2010. But with only two years to go, it is not even half way to reaching that goal, largely because projects on land and out at sea have been held up in the planning system.
"Onshore was meant to have delivered, I think, about 50 percent of that target and its not happening because of planning," he said. "All that requires is some changes to the planning system to make it more efficient. Push offshore by all means, but don't abandon onshore." As concern over global warming and a looming generation shortfall has intensified, London has tried to clear a path through the planning system to make it easier to build large energy projects.
But the new planning laws do not apply to projects of less than 50 MW, so will not help most onshore wind farms overcome local council hurdles, even though they can supply carbon-free power at almost half the cost of lining the coastline with offshore turbines. "There are so many projects below 50 MW that will still be left in the planning limbo," Vince said. "They play a very valuable role but they will be stuck with district council consenting processes... That's the tricky bit, the nettle that this government has been unwilling to grasp."
Vince said Britain is windy enough inland to power the whole country several times over but that it is politically easier for the government to push wind farm builders out to sea where costs -- which will be passed to the consumer -- are much higher.
Germany is less windy than Britain yet generates much more carbon-free power from onshore wind turbines, he said.
NEW GREEN
Ecotricity has built several onshore wind farms equal to about 15 percent of the national total and is half way through a project in eastern England that will take its total wind capacity beyond 50 MW.
It now has over 30,000 customers and has spent an average of 431 pounds ($882) per customer over last three years on building new green power plants, rather than selling power from Britain's tiny pool of existing renewables, which all suppliers are legally obliged to do anyway. "Most years we spend more (on renewable energy) than all the other electricity companies put together. We won't buy the old stuff which already exists because that's like pass-the-parcel greenness," Vince said.
"It goes from one consumer to another and each time somebody buys it they think they have cut their carbon footprint. But they have only done it at the expense of the person next door... The only meaningful way to fight climate change, the only meaningful green electricity, is the stuff that we build today and tomorrow and the next day." (Editing by Anthony Barker)