SOME MYTHS ABOUT WIND FARMS

This page describes a selection of myths about wind farms and summarises the truth about each one. The truth about these and several other myths about wind farms is described at http://www.dti.gov.uk/renewables/renew_1.1.2.2.htm and http://www.bwea.com/energy/myths.html.

Tourism and the view

The small but vocal minority of people who are objecting to the proposed Gwynt y Mor wind farm in Liverpool bay have expressed two main concerns:

• That the wind farm will spoil the view.
• That this will cause tourists to stay away from Llandudno and other places in North Wales.

The wind turbines will be out at sea, 9 miles from Llandudno, and will not be visible on a hazy or misty day. On a clearer day, the appearance of the wind turbines from Llandudno will be much as they appear in the enlarged version of the image below, prepared by npower renewables and shown in a BBC report on the 9th of November 2005.

Click picture to enlarge.

The wind turbines will certainly be visible, but their visual impact will be very much less than the highly misleading 'in-your-face' pictures that have been circulated by the Save Our Seas campaign. It is regrettable that the minority who oppose the wind farm should have to resort to this kind of misrepresentation to make their case.

With regard to tourism, the weight of evidence is that wind farms have no negative effect on tourism and that many of them are tourist attractions in their own right:

• A survey conducted on behalf of npower renewables found that 96% of tourists in the survey thought that the smaller North Hoyle wind farm (which is up and running) has had no effect on visitor numbers. 73% of local residents now support it.
• More than 30,000 people have visited the information centre for the new Scroby Sands offshore wind farm since May 2004.
• A survey by MORI Social Research in September 2002 found that:
  • 90 per cent of tourists surveyed in Scotland said wind farms make no difference to their enjoyment of their holiday.
  • Twice as many would return to an area because of a wind farm than would stay away.

The wind does not blow all the time

An old chestnut about wind power is that it is unreliable because the wind does not blow all the time. The assumption behind this objection is that conventional power stations are 100% reliable and can produce electricity for every minute of every day throughout the year.

The truth is that conventional power stations, including nuclear power stations, only generate electricity for about 50% of the time, partly because of unscheduled break-downs and partly because of the need for regular maintenance. By comparison, wind farms produce some electricity for about 80% of the time and their 'load factor', their average output compared with the theoretical maximum, is about 30%.

We need also to remember that the demand for electricity is not a fixed quantity. It is highly variable and fluctuates from minute to minute.

The fact that all sources of power are not totally reliable and the fact that the demand for electricity varies means a mixture of different sources of power will always be needed to match supply and demand at any given time (see next).

Wind power is inadequate to meet our needs

The amount of exploitable wind power in the UK is massive. Offshore wind power alone could meet our needs three times over. (It is more expensive than land-based wind farms which means we need a mixture of land-based and offshore wind farms.)

Although the wind does not blow all the time, wind power could, if we wish, provide 100% of the electricity we use. How is this possible? When there is more wind power than we need, the surplus electricity may be used to generate hydrogen (by passing the electricity through water) and the hydrogen is stored. When the wind drops, the stored hydrogen may be used as fuel for an engine which drives an electrical generator. This technology has been developed by a company based on Anglesey! (See www.wind-hydrogen.com). Britain has huge quantities of wind energy, far more than we need, and hydrogen could iron out the peaks and troughs.