October 5, 2020
Letters, Scotland

Turbine failure under SNP’s watch

Herald on Sunday letters | The Herald | www.heraldscotland.com

Scottish Labour has called on the Scottish Government to “stand up” for domestic jobs following the decision that the multi-billion-pound Seagreen offshore wind farm is to be manufactured abroad and built with foreign labour. A spokesman parroted the usual platitudes on how the Scottish Government was committed to supporting growth within the Scottish supply chain. The SNP has controlled Scotland’s devolved legislature since 2007 so has had adequate time to ensure that Scotland’s companies and workforce benefited from the wind turbine tsunami. Instead the turbines were manufactured in China, Denmark, Germany and Spain and erected with foreign labour.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) database revealed that Scotland has 21,800 turbines either onshore or offshore so why was nothing secured by the SNP for Scottish companies and their workforce? Since 2010 wind turbine owners, mostly foreign, have been paid £726 million in constraint payments. Electricity is now four times more expensive than gas so no wonder fuel poverty is escalating. The wind industry sucks in grants, constraint payments and subsidies and spits out unreliable part-time expensive electricity.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2020/10/05/turbine-failure-under-snps-watch/