Energy News

Dressing Down for British Wind Power

Monday 25 May, 2008

By Dan Drage

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The UK has been urged to speed up its wind farm generation rate, or risk missing strict EU deadlines.

The Government has been challenged by the European Union (EU) to generate 15% of the UK’s energy supply through renewable sources by 2020.

This deadline was described as ‘optimistic’ by the British Wind Energy Association in January 2008.

"The solution is to explore offshore wind. To meet the target we are going to need 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power"

As it stands, Britain is on course to produce between 5% and 7% of its energy from renewable sources, according to Scottish and Southern Energy’s (www.scottish-southern.co.uk) Ian Marchant.

Mr. Marchant had the following to say:

‘The solution is to explore offshore wind. To meet the target we are going to need 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power.’

This would require four new offshore wind farms to be built each year. These new wind farms would enable Britain to generate 35-40% of its electricity from renewable sources.

Ten days ago, Scottish and Southern Energy signed a lease with the Crown Estate to build a £1.3 billion wind farm at Greater Gabbard, 26 kilometres off the Suffolk coast, which will be the country's largest. If the UK is to meet the EU target, all new wind farms must be the same size as Greater Gabbard.

Chris Eagle, Commercial Manager at Credit Choices, is aware time is against the project:

‘Ten years seems like enough time for this project to come to fruition, but four new wind farms a year the size of Greater Gabbard is a huge ask. Time will tell, but it would appear the government may be liable for a nasty fine come 2020.’