Helen Johnson

I’ll be upfront about this: for many years, the controversies raging over wind turbines were not near me, and I didn’t take the time to look into it.   Then applications for wind turbines arrived in my area, motivating me to take that time.  Here is some of what I have discovered.

As part of its climate change strategy, Government policy favours wind energy, because it is the most developed of the ‘renewable’ technologies.  Currently, wind provides less than  3% of the country’s electricity needs.  But the Government’s hopes for renewables could mean a ten-fold increase in wind energy.   As we currently have around 300 operational on-shore windfarms, this could mean an increase to 3,000 onshore wind farms.

And it’s  increasingly controversial.  Onshore wind has the potential to significantly change the British countryside.  Wind farms need to be tall, meaning they can be seen for miles around.  And because they work best in open landscapes, they bring an industrial look to areas that might appear ’wild’ or ‘natural’.

While many people resent the industrialisation of the landscape,  many other people find the clean lines and sweeping curves of wind turbines attractive.  But there are  technical issues as well.   Electricity is made by turning generators, which cause the electricity to flow down wires and into our homes.  The electricity itself can’t be piled up and stored like a tank of oil: it has to flow and be used.  And if more is made than is used, or less is made than is used, it doesn’t work and our lights will go out.   Making sure that the right amount of electricity is  flowing through our wires is called ‘balancing the grid’, and is masterminded at National Grid’s control centre.

So if the wind blows when people aren’t using electricity, or if people turn on appliances when the wind isn’t blowing, these controllers have a problem.   They either have to switch off the wind turbines, or call on gas-fired power stations to start generating.

Although electricity can be stored in batteries,  batteries are expensive and we don’t have enough that are big enough, and cheap enough,  to store the quantities of electricity we use on the National Grid.   Our current best method of  storing electricity is  to pump water uphill at hydropower stations, to let it fall down again and turn the turbines when we want the electricity.   But we don’t have enough of this: according to DECC, hydropower provides less than 2% of our total electricity.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Renewables Obligation, a mechanism which effectively  subsidises wind energy via consumers’ bills,  wind power is an exceptionally profitable business.  Big business is keen to build more wind farms and make this money.

However, across the UK, hundreds of  groups opposing wind farms claim that wind turbines disturb people and damage the environment.  However, Renewables UK, the wind  industry association, claims that  “94% of people who live near wind farms are in favour of them,” while, “85% of the general public support both onshore and offshore wind.”

There is a lot of passion attached to life near – which I regard as less than a mile away – from a windfarm.  Advocates say it’s a privilege to be involved with renewable energy generation.  Opponents say that large wind turbines create new, not fully understood effects, that can damage people.

So I have been trying to cut through the hype, and  have spent the last two years  trying to make contact with  people who are living near windfarms, to find out what it is like.   I would like to hear about life with a wind farm in people’s own words: good or bad.

If you live near a wind farm, please contact me to tell me you experience:  helen@helenforwordsandpictures.com