Onshore wind: Planning or Building, which one is the real problem?
This was inspired by some stats that Stuart put in a comment on my blog post about Shell pulling out of offshore. Stuart, on the question of what the real problem for onshore wind is – you threw me for a day or so with your statistics from the BWEA, good source, hard to argue with. But on closer examination I think you’ve perhaps not read them quite right. The 5GW consented figure is for BOTH off and onshore – split roughly 50/50. So in fact there are about 2.5 GW of consented onshore projects out there of which according to the BWEA about 900 MW (not 500) is being built right now – approaching 40% of the consented total. Not brilliant but not your 10 to 1 ratio. More like 2.5 to 1.
The reason for the delay from consent to construction is well known in the industry. And it’s still the planning system, in this case the way it deals with the discharge of planning conditions – of which wind farms have many. It can take years to clear these conditions and it has to be done before building. That’s mostly why, of 2.5 GW right now, less than 40% is under construction.
Stats confirmed here for anyone interested: http://www.bwea.com/statistics/
Two facts to support my argument about planning: two thirds of all wind projects are refused by District Councils at the planning stage, and two thirds of all appeals are upheld by the government – a lot of bad decisions being overturned, eventually.
And wind energy is the only major generation source that depends for planning on District Councils – the government deals with all others for very good reasons. District councils are not up to the job, on the whole.
If offshore wind had onshore economics and/or onshore wind had offshore planning, we’d be well away. Bolstering offshore will cost hundreds of Millions, bolstering onshore will take some political courage, to give it a planning system fit for purpose. We could spend those hundreds of millions in far more effective ways.
Which means the great majority of French electricity will be fossil free with their 70% nuclear generation. I guess they will be the first country grid to face the problem of having to cope with fluctuating peak requirements with systems built for base load (nuclear) and opportunistic (wind). It will be interesting to see what proportion of fast firing fossil they will need to maintain guaranteed supply through the peaks of demand and the lows of wind. Also a demonstration that nuclear and wind do not have to be foes - but that’s another discussion.
You are right to say I included on & offshore wind. But it isn’t consents (or even detail consents) that’s stopping the majors building is either. The Shell decision was because of rising costs. And rising costs are directly attributable to short supply of turbines.
It doesn’t matter about consents if you can’t get the turbines. Increased prices will encourage more investment in the industry but that will take a long time unless governments/industry can together create an a rapid increase in production. We have 5 or 6 major manufacturers. Amazingly none British with our history of powering stuff with propellers and some of the best wind tunnels, aerodynamicists and aerospace industries.
I wonder if some EU/HMG support in this area would be better at delivering turbines faster at lower cost enabling the consented backlog to disappear
I use and root for ecotricity and know onshore planning system is YOUR major showstopper and needs to get sorted. Being sorted would allow ecotricity to grow exponentially. Even so it will still be a minnow against the majors. And I’m not convinced we would see the same step change there. Indeed your spend comparisons would tend to suggest that right now.
Its just strange that EDF can do so much in France and so little here …
Comment by Stuart — May 27, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
Ecotricity could def do so much more if this changed. But would be always be a minnow, indeed are we a minnow now? I bumped into an interesting statistic the other day, Powergen (or E.on as they now are) have 200MW of wind energy in the UK – and some 6 million plus customers. Ecotricity has 50 MW of wind energy, around one quarter of what Powergen has, with just 35,000 customers – less than 1% of their customer base. We may be small but I think our impact is in the same league even now. In England where we focus our efforts we have over 12% of the total (onshore) wind energy capacity. Cheers.
Comment by dale — June 2, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Rgds
Damon
Comment by Damon Hart-Davis — June 2, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
Comment by dale — June 10, 2008 @ 10:54 am
I’ve got a question. I was just reading in the Independent yesterday their cover story. It mentioned plans to change planning laws that give the powers to grant or deny permission for such things as airport expansion, nuclear power statiions, road widening, reservoirs to a group appointed by the government. Will onshore wind farms be affected by this if it goes through?
Jeff
Comment by Jeffrey Lam — June 25, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Thanks for the comment. I just thought I would let you know that Dale pretty much answered your question in his post today. Essentially - we think the answer is no unfortunately.
Comment by paul — June 26, 2008 @ 11:56 am
I wasn’t sure how best to show you this link so I picked a post that seemed relevant.
As you are in the wind energy business I thought you might be interested in this, or probably already know about it.
It is a wind wing which claims to be more efficient than a propeller.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1883/
But I’m no expert, just a curious individual
Hope it’s of some interest.
Thanks,
James
=-)
Comment by James — July 17, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
Comment by dale — July 21, 2008 @ 8:26 am