Engineering news
Local residents will be given more power when it comes to construction of wind farms and offered greater incentives to adopt them under new measures announced by the government.
The planning guidance will be changed to ensure that local community concerns can override renewable energy targets and give more weight to the impact of turbines on the landscape.
The changes are part of a package of measures that will see a significant increase in the amount of money developers pay out to local residents for agreeing to host wind farms nearby.
Developers will increase their benefit packages from £1,000 per megawatt of installed power to £5,000, meaning that a medium-sized 20 MW farm (with 10 turbines) would produce £100,000 for the local community.
A similar scheme is currently in operation in Scotland. Residents near wind farm devloper RES's Meikle Carewe wind farm, near Aberdeen, will receive £122 off their annual electricity bills.
Energy secretary Ed Davey said: “It is important that onshore wind is developed in a way that is truly sustainable – economically, environmentally and socially, and today's announcement will ensure that communities see the windfall from hosting developments near to them, not just the wind farm.
“We remain committed to the deployment of appropriately sited onshore wind, as a key part of a diverse, low carbon and secure energy mix and committed to an evidence-based approach to supporting low carbon power.”
The renewables industry has raised concerns about the higher rate of payments which they say will prevent some planned wind energy developments from going ahead.
Maria McCaffery, chief executive of RenewableUK, said: “Developing wind farms requires a significant amount of investment to be made upfront. Adding to this cost, by following the government's advice that we should pay substantially more into community funds for future projects, will unfortunately make some planned wind energy developments uneconomic in England, so they will not go ahead and that is very disappointing.
“That said, we recognise the need to ensure good practice across the industry and will continue to work with government and local authorities to benefit communities right across the country which are hosting our clean energy future.”
Onshore wind provided 3% of the UK's electricity supplies in 2011, generating enough to power the equivalent of 2.5 million homes.
More than 4,000 turbines are in operation across the UK with almost 6,000 under or awaiting construction or in the planning system. The industry attracted £1.6 billion in private investment in 2011/2012 and supports some 1,800 jobs.