| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Take this money off wind energy firms
Credit: Western Mail | Tuesday, March 3, 2020 | www.walesonline.co.uk ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
If the figures regarding “constraint payments” paid to UK wind farms, published in the letter from Ms Kristine Moore and Dr Dominic Costa of Llanidloes on February 26 are correct, and I have no reason to doubt them, then it is an absolute scandal.
According to them, UK wind farms were paid a total of £139.1m in 2019 in “constraint payments”, so as to not generate electricity.
Even worse, due to a windy start, wind farms have already earned £71.2m in less than two months of 2020, so as to not generate electricity.
The constraints were enacted because the capacity of the grid connectors from remote wind farms to centres of UK population were exceeded or because it has been too windy, demanding shut-down for safety reasons. How ludicrous is that ?
Some of these huge wind farms have been erected on the moorland catchment areas of our rivers, especially at Pen-y-Cymoedd in the Valleys and in Powys, thereby replacing absorbent peat and grass, with non-absorbent concrete, tarmac and hard shale, so the wind farms have contributed to flash-flooding downstream. Yet they are also paid, at double its wholesale cost, not to generate electricity. Scandalous!
I wonder how the poor cash-strapped flooded house-holders of the Welsh Valleys, Shrewsbury, Tewkesbury, Ironbridge, Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford and elsewhere in the UK feel about such unpalatable news?
How about removing these non-deserved, unearned millions of pounds from the wind energy companies and donating it to house-holders and little businesses ruined by the floods? After all, the wind energy companies are partially responsible.
Lyn Jenkins
Gwbert, Cardigan
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
| Wind Watch relies entirely on User Funding |
 (via Stripe) |
 (via Paypal) |
Share:
[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=96593 ]
