Sir, Brett and Jill Kibble (letter, Feb 12) highlight the environmental impact of wind turbines in areas of outstanding natural beauty. It is also important to highlight the performance of turbines throughout January and during the recent adverse weather period when energy demand has been very high.

A little over a week ago, Britain’s fleet of coal-fired power stations supplied 50 per cent of the nation’s electricity, up from their average 35 per cent. Gas-fired stations supplied 31 per cent and nuclear stations supplied 16 per cent. While coal plants were being ramped up to shoulder the lion’s share of our electricity demand during the prolonged cold snap, wind energy provided only 0.4 per cent of our total demand. There were periods in January when wind hardly registered at all.

These figures should alarm all policymakers when one considers that the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) will result in the UK having to close down nearly a third of its coal-fired power stations by 2015. Whether Britain seeks a derogation from the directive is a political decision, but in the meantime the Government must give the go-ahead for those new baseload clean-coal stations, such as Kingsnorth, which are awaiting approval from the Government.

Electricity generated from coal is cheaper than gas, and Britain enjoys a balanced number of global coal suppliers, not to mention our own domestic reserves. Wind energy’s failure to deliver during the continuing cold period should be a wake-up call. We need to better support more reliable and predictable renewables such as tidal stream.

Tony Lodge

Research Fellow, Centre for

Policy Studies

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