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The Case against windfarms
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Times online
August 17, 2003
Business Letters
BLOWING IN THE WIND: As I run one of 29 companies that have pre-qualified for the second bid round for offshore wind farms (Business, last week), I can confirm Labour’s renewable-energy plan has problems, the least of which is financing.
Although the second round was announced by the Department of Trade and Industry, which has successfully managed the North Sea oil industry, the tendering process for offshore wind is being managed by the Crown Estate. Add the fact that most of the area designated for wind farms in the northwest is under Ministry of Defence restrictions and you have a political and commercial quagmire.
To give an example, most of the sites awarded in the first offshore round were within eight miles of the coast, an area that has now been designated an “exclusion zone” under the DTI’s strategic environmental assessment. This report was released after the second-round bidders were asked to submit proposals for wind-farm locations.
One has to wonder if the Labour government is serious about its renewables obligation.
Frank Inouye
managing director, Deltaic Systems
Woking, Surrey
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