Onshore Wind Energy
Debate between Lord Beith and Andrea Leadsom(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
I thank my hon. Friend for that, but I think that we are talking about two slightly different things. I am talking about 30% of wind farm capacity being effective at any one time.
I move on to my own constituency of South Northamptonshire. The Met Office confirms that it is one of the most sheltered parts of the UK. Our average wind speed is around 8 knots, which means that we are towards the lower end of effective speeds for a wind turbine. Nevertheless, I have four applications for wind turbines in my constituency—one in Greatworth and Helmdon, one in Roade, one in Alderton and one very recently in Paulerspury. A local study suggests that the capacity of the wind turbines would be around 19%, which is extremely low. We will, none the less, face massive disruption during construction.
Having spoken to a number of developers, I am told that the factors that attracted them to South Northamptonshire were the excellent roads, the convenience of the sites to the motorways, the good links to the grid, and the ROCs. They did not say that they were attracted to Northamptonshire because it is an exceptionally windy place. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on today’s announcement, which he kindly sent to my office this morning. It said that the Government will consider giving wind farm developers a new incentive to build in windy places rather than in constituencies such as mine where there really is not enough wind to be worth the cost.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
That is slightly worrying to those of us who represent rather windy places. In the hilltop village of Wingate, in my constituency, residents faced the prospect of being encircled by wind farms, which were separately applied for by different developers, and that is a planning process that they find very difficult to cope with.
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I agree that the issue of the local need versus the national interest still applies. Let us start from the basis that we build wind farms where it is windy and not where it is not windy.