Renewables: UK Wind Energy

The UK on February 9th 2007 passed the 2 GW mark for generating electricity from wind energy. For those who like comparisons 2GW is enough electricity to power 20 million 100w light bulbs or enough electricity to light up 16,667 Eiffel Tower's [1]. or 1,250,000 homes [2] or replace two coal powered power stations [2].

Government targets for renewables is 10% by 2010 and 20% by 2020. It would be fair to say that the bulk of this will come from wind energy. Our current achievement to target is a poor 4.2% from all green sources.

I don't know what the odds of reaching our target by 2010 are but I think they are probably slim. However, given the forecasted exponential growth of the industry the 2020 target remains realistic.

The reason the BBC article and the target achievement caught my eye was first it was a celebration of a milestone reached but also a chance to reflect on how far we still have to go.

In the article it ranks the greatest renewable energy producers of the world, the UK is eighth. Considering we are a member of the G6 group of countries how exactly did we get to be eighth. We are even behind the USA the oil addicted country, OK so maybe a bit of an unfair comparison the US has a land mass the size of a continent, the UK is a small island.

There are other countries we should be ahead of Italy, Denmark, Spain, Germany.

On the subject of Germany it has long been known that they are leading the field in renewables electricity generation. They have supported solar panels and there is a much greater market penetration in the domestic sector of green technologies.

In the UK the planning system is part of the problem in nearly every case wind farms are having to go to a public enquiry which can take up to 16 months. Now it is important to take into account all opinions and concerns as part of the democratic process but 16 months is too long, nothing takes that long to make a decision. There should be a statutory maximum of 6 months and the government should start intervening and if necessary penalise planning authorities that are dragging their heels.

There are currently 7,940 MW of onshore wind power held up in the UK planning system. Not all of these will go ahead because of reasonable objections by the public, but these decision need to be made quicker so the industry can advance. Only a quarter of these planning applications need to be approved to help meet the 2010 renewables target but they need to be approved by the end of this year.

In order to reach our renewables targets the governments really needs to start to take some positive steps. I would like to see all groups come together to find some simple plans which the government can do to prime the pump and allow renewables to grow.

I believe that this is a green technology revolution and that the countries that get in on the ground floor will reap the economic rewards. Germany has already reaped the rewards isn't it time the UK gets involved before it is too late.

UK wind statistics from the British Wind Energy Association