Renewables industry defends wind energy, warning Duke of Edinburgh is “seriously misinformed”
- Time has come to bust the myths peddled by anti-wind campaigners
- Support for wind costs only £10 in average £600 electricity bill
- 90,000 jobs in wind industry to be created by 2020.
RenewableUK, the trade
association representing the wind, wave and tidal industry, has
responded to remarks made by the Duke of Edinburgh about wind energy.
RenewableUK’s Chief
Executive, Maria McCaffery MBE, said: “Contrary to the Duke’s
comments, the irrefutable facts are that wind energy is providing a
clean, secure supply of electricity to more than three million homes
in the UK, displacing six and a half million tonnes of carbon dioxide
every year”.
“Overall, the
long-term cost-effectiveness of wind makes it an economic necessity
for our future – we can’t go on relying on expensive imports of
fossil fuels, which are the real reason why energy bills are going
up. We need to explode some of these myths that are being peddled by
anti-renewables campaigners. I fear that, with great respect, the
Duke of Edinburgh has been seriously misinformed, and he has failed
to understand the many benefits offered by renewable energy”.
The trade
association highlights the fact that the independent electricity
regulator Ofgem says that the cost of supporting wind adds only about
£10 per year to the average domestic electricity bill of £600 - a
figure far lower than those misreported in some sections of the
media. Ofgem has also warned that any failure to invest in renewable
energy will result in domestic bills increasing by as much as 52%, if
we remain over-reliant on increasingly expensive fossil fuels from
unstable regimes abroad[1].
McCaffery also
points out that a quarter of our traditional sources of electricity -
coal-fired and nuclear power stations - will reach the end of their
natural lives within the next ten years: “Wind energy is vital for
our future if we are to keep the lights on. The UK has the best wind
resource in Europe. Wind turbines generate electricity for 80-85% of
the time – far more than the lower statistics bandied about by some
ill-informed commentators”, she said.
The trade
association also highlights the enormous economic benefits wind
energy offers in terms of job creation. About 11,000 people are
working in the UK wind industry, many of them in highly skilled
engineering jobs. By 2021, a study by the respected analysts
Cambridge Econometrics[2] shows that this will
increase to nearly 90,000 jobs as we build a new low-carbon economy
and meet our carbon reduction targets.
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