Guy Opperman
Main Page: Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham)(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
I certainly agree. In my constituency, Daventry district council will look tomorrow evening at adopting a policy. It is happy to be challenged about the distance that dwellings should have to be from renewable energy projects. All local authorities should develop such a plan because it is local people who should buy into these things.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
As we are aware, there is guidance in Scotland, which is manifestly different from the position in England. Does my hon. Friend agree that the right way forward would be the adoption of the guidance that exists in Scotland, which protects the 2 km from people’s houses on an ongoing basis? If we had that, everything would be a lot simpler.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will talk about that point later. It is significant and important with regard to issues of noise and flicker, which I will come on to.
I believe that wind is a burden on the grid. It forces other forms of capacity to be shut down to accommodate wind production when the wind is blowing, and then instantaneously to come back on line when the wind stops. I would like to ask the Minister how much additional gas-fired power capacity—that is the only way that we can power up instantaneously—will be required to accommodate the current targets for wind capacity in the UK? What is the anticipated cost to the electricity markets in lost efficiency and stranded capacity associated with gas-fired plants operating as back-up for wind power? Will the Minister outline the efficiency losses, and the operational and economic impact on other forms of generation that have to modify their behaviour to accommodate the power that comes from wind?
Taking all those factors into account, will the Minister state how many grams of carbon dioxide, or just carbon in general, onshore wind will save per kilowatt hour? Is it not the case that, without massive hydro or other bulk storage, wind capacity must be matched on the UK grid almost megawatt for megawatt by fossil back-up operating at inefficient part load?
RenewableUK has publicly acknowledged that profits for wind farm operators are impressively large. That is largely a consequence of the operation of the indirect renewables obligation subsidy mechanism.