Tuesday, 20th July 2010
The Great Windfarm Scam
[Speech by Struan Stevenson, MEP to wind farm protesters at Dava Moor, Grantown on Spey, Tuesday 20th July 2010]
I have returned for my fourth visit to Dava Moor to support the ongoing fight to save this unique area from being sucked into the great windmill scandal. If planning consent is granted to any of the six windfarms at Dava Moor it will destroy a vast peat bog which is up to 4 metres deep and over 2000 years old. It will release massive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere and disturb the fragile ecosystem and hydrology of the lower regions of the Findhorn River. This fabulous part of our Scottish landscape heritage, home to capercaillies, golden eagles, ospreys, buzzards, red throated divers, lapwings, skylarks and ravens, will be permanently disfigured. This is not the way forward. It is a corruption of the fight against climate change and a disaster for Scotland.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that a recent investigation has proved that Scotland’s windfarms are only working at half power. Stuart Young who runs Caithness Wind Information Forum analysed data from the Balancing Mechanism Reporting System website, which the national grid uses to measure output from over 1500 MW generated by wind farms in Scotland. His shock findings showed that while wind farms are known to have an average load factor of only around 30%, in other words they produce energy for just under one third of their active life, in fact this year they have barely managed to achieve 17% of their maximum installed capacity. Indeed there have been long spells when no electricity at all was produced by any of Scotland’s wind farms.
The great windfarm scam has now been cruelly exposed. The emperor has truly been seen to have no clothes! Power companies and landowners have been seduced by the lure of rich returns. They have found willing and compliant allies in the teeming ranks of politicians and planners who leap on the climate change bandwagon without first comprehending the negative impact of their decisions. Greed has replaced common sense in the rush for renewables. Communities are assured that they will benefit hugely from generous grants and subsidies if they allow their landscape to be defiled by monster turbines.
But such windfarm windfalls have to be paid for and the unwitting Scottish consumer ultimately has to foot the bill. Electricity generated by wind turbines in Scotland is now amongst the most costly in Europe. The Scottish wind industry is struggling to reduce costs from 9p to 8p per unit, even before the subsidy for the renewable obligation certificate (ROC) is taken into account and that adds a further 5.5p per unit. Compare this to the price of nuclear generated electricity in France, currently costing around 1.7p per unit and virtually CO2 emission free and you begin to get the picture.
Each turbine erected in Scotland soaks up subsidies of over £100,000 a year paid for by electricity consumers like you and me. It is often said that wind power is free, but that is certainly not the case. In fact it’s very expensive, both in terms of hard cash, and in terms of the blight it has on lives, homes and communities. So far we have spent billions of pounds on building just over 3,000 wind turbines in Britain - and yet they produce barely one per cent of all the electricity that we need.
The rush for renewables has also encouraged politicians to take their eye off the energy ball, egged on by the incomprehensible windfarm obsession of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. With the SNP government blocking the construction of any new nuclear power stations in Scotland and with fossil fuel power plants nearing the end of their active life, an over-reliance on wind energy is placing Scotland on the fast-track to disaster.
The day is not far off when we will face energy blackouts. If this happens, and we don't have an alternative, our kettles won't boil, our computers won't work and our country will face economic meltdown. But if and when our lights do go out, it will be important to remember just why we got carried away by such a massive blunder.
Left with our unique Scottish landscape bristling with rusting, redundant and useless windmills, we will be able to tell our children and grandchildren how in the early part of the twenty first century our political leaders collectively lost their heads and perpetrated the biggest energy scam ever known.
STRUAN STEVENSON, MEP
Struan Stevenson is a Conservative Euro MP for Scotland and President of the Climate Change, Biodiversity & Sustainable Development Intergroup in the European Parliament.
