Thousands of offshore wind turbines are to be built off the holiday coasts of Cornwall and South Wales under Crown Estate plans to accelerate offshore turbine expansion. The Telegraph has more.
Thousands more giant wind turbines are to be constructed around Britain’s shores under plans set out by the Crown Estate, which owns and manages the seabeds around England, Wales and Northern Ireland on behalf of the King.
The Crown Estate wants to open up swathes of the Celtic Sea – stretching along the coasts of North Cornwall, South Wales, and out to the Scilly Isles – for renewable energy generation, as well as areas off the coasts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire – home to popular resorts.
The plans have been welcomed by wind and power companies but condemned by fishermen who said wind farm expansion threatened their industry and its communities.
The Crown Estate entered into partnership with Great British Energy, the new state organisation set up by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, to develop renewable power.
The U.K. currently has 2,800 offshore wind turbines with the capacity to generate 15 gigawatts (GW) of power. They produced 15% of British electricity last year. Another 12 GW of offshore wind capacity is under construction and a further 11 GW has planning approval.
The Crown Estate report suggests expanding the total to as much as 140 GW by 2050 – a nine-fold increase – meaning several thousand more wind turbines will be needed. Such an expansion would grow low-carbon energy capacity but would also risk treasured sea views being transformed by distant spinning turbines.
Modern wind turbines average 850 feet and could be visible from up to 35 miles away. A Crown Estate spokesman said it was too early to say how many would be visible from the coast.
New wind farms will also potentially impact fishing, sailing, shipping and the beaches and communities where cables connecting them to the National Grid come ashore.
Worth reading in full.
Wind turbines are no use on a still winter’s day of course and always need to have a fossil fuel back-up on standby – a drawback that can’t be mentioned often enough because it’s so disastrous for their cost-effectiveness and is often omitted by the Government and in the press.
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