How Britain went tilting at windmills

Michael Hanlon — The Telegraph — January 14, 2013

Not only are wind farms an unreliable source of power, but it has been revealed that generous licence deals will pay out even if they fail to deliver.

The unfortunate technical term is “intermittent renewables”. This is the name given to the wave of green energy sources such as solar, windand wave power. Wind farms are certainly “renewable” but they are also unreliable, say opponents.

When the wind does not blow – and that is surprisingly often, even in our allegedly tempestuous archipelago – a wind farm is not a power station but a collection of useless white fans on a hillside. Meanwhile, a nuclear plant or gas-fuelled turbine keeps churning out electricity, day and night, with Stakhanovite determination.

Now opponents of wind energy have another stick with which to go tilting at windmills. The Public Accounts Committee, chaired by the increasingly redoubtable Margaret Hodge, has produced a report slamming the “generous” licence deals, worth about £17 billion, that have been done with just two engineering companies, Macquarie and Transmission Capital Partners, to provide the necessary infrastructure to connect wind-derived electricity to the grid. Under the 20-year deal, agreed under the last Labour administration but rubber-stamped by current Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) ministers, energy firms are paid even if they fail to deliver energy to households.

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