_November 19th 2011

Following complaints about the noise of rotating blades from nearby residents, operators have agreed to switch off the machines or reduce their speed when the wind is blowing too strongly.

The agreements, which mean the turbines generate less electricity, have been revealed in dossiers from local authorities about their investigations into noise pollution complaints.



FULL ARTICLE

November 19th 2011

In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were “a disgrace”.

He also criticised the industry’s reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale”.

COMMENT BY US
3 Cheers for HRH having the guts to comment on this!




FULL ARTICLE

_September 17th 2011
A wind farm has been paid £1.2 million not to produce electricity for eight-and-a-half hours.

By Edward Malnick and Robert Mendick

The amount is ten times greater than the wind farm's owners would have received had they actually generated any electricity.
The disclosure exposes the bizarre workings of Britain's electricity supply, prompting calls last night for an official investigation into the payments system.

The £1.2 million will go to a Norwegian company which owns 60 turbines in the Scottish Borders.

FULL ARTICLE

August 21st 2011

By Robert Mendick and Edward Malnick


FULL ARTICLE

May 1st
By Victoria Ward

The payments, worth up to 20 times the value of the power they would have produced, raises serious concerns about such subsidies, which are paid for by the customer.
The six Scottish wind farms were asked to stop producing electricity on a particularly windy night last month as the National Grid was overloaded.
FULL ARTICLE

Their transition cables do not have the capacity to transfer the power to England and so they were switched off and the operators received compensation. One operator received £312,000, while another benefited by £263,000.

The payments were discovered by the Renewable Energy Foundation, a green think tank, which accused the Government of building too many wind farms in northern Britain.

April 23 2011
By Christopher Booker

Figures published last week reveal that the moment when Britain’s lights start going out may be much closer than previously predicted. Thanks in part to the hammering they took in the abnormal cold of last winter, six large coal-fired power stations which supply a fifth of Britain’s average electricity needs have now used up more than half of the 20,000 running hours they are each allowed under the EU’s Large Combustion Plants directive. When they reach that limit they will have to shut down.

FULL ARTICLE

...
1 January 2011
by Louise Gray
Environment Correspondent

Despite high demand for electricity as people shivered at home over Christmas, most of the 3,000 wind turbines around Britain stood still due to a lack of wind.Even yesterday when conditions were slightly breezier, wind farms generated just 1.8 per cent of the nation’s electricity, less than a third of usual levels.The failure of wind farms to function at full tilt during December forced energy suppliers to rely on coal-fired power stations to keep the lights on.





FULL ARTICLE

13 November 2010
By Simon Johnson
Scottish Political Editor


Scotland is in “serious danger” of suffering power shortages over the next decade thanks to Alex Salmond’s “bonkers” green energy policies, the head of one of the country’s largest generators has warned.





FULL ARTICLE

...
29 September 2010
by James Delingpole

Here’s another wind farm scandal waiting to break. I wonder if it will ever get any coverage in the mainstream media.

This is what my anonymous source has to say:I am at an energy conference in Europe.Yesterday I talked to two friends of mine who are involved in civil engineering in the UK. They both told me that concrete foundations for onshore wind turbine towers in the UK are starting to crack. Apparently it is being hushed up as much as possible.  (There is only a small possibility that this is an unfounded rumour. But, as always, the possibility exists.)

The lawyers are deep into it with accusations of negligence and the like flying in all directions. Apparently the defence has been that they were built according to the current code. But there seems to be no doubt that the code is inadequate.
FULL ARTICLE

...
June 2010
by The London Editor
Andrew Gilligan

Professor David MacKay, who is now chief scientific adviser at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, has pointed out that in autumn/winter 2006/7 there were 17 days when output from Britain’s wind turbines was less than 10 per cent of their total capacity. On five of those days, output was below 5 per cent and on one day it was only 2 per cent. And those were the windier seasons.

To cope with what’s called “intermittency”, you must do two things.

First, you have to build far more wind turbines, in far more places, than you theoretically need. Prof MacKay says: “We need to be imagining industrialising really large tranches of the countryside.” Every view, from every summit in Britain – apart, perhaps, from a handful of specially preserved recreational mountains – will be like the view from Plynlimon.

The wind turbines required in Britain alone, says Prof MacKay, would amount to about double the number of all turbines in the world.
FULL ARTICLE