When the wind blows

Tweet The proposal by Powys County Council to refuse all consents for wind farms on highways grounds looks pretty sweeping. I'm open to be proved wrong, but I doubt that they will be able to sustain the policy in the event of any appeal, unless they can prove that the reasoning is sound in the case of any individual application. It has already been successful, however, in drawing attention to the fact that wind power is not necessarily as 'green' as it is painted.

As with most environmental questions, it is hard to work out where the balance of advantage lies when it comes to wind power, and it comes down to a matter of judgement.

Many of the objections relate to the aesthetics of wind farms on our mountain tops, and are made very vociferously. Living within the buffer area around the Brechfa Forest SSA, I can understand the argument. But the quality of an argument does not depend on its volume; and given the impact that unchecked climate change would have on our landscape, I think that the aesthetics argument is just about the weakest reason for objecting to wind farms.

I don't doubt that some wind farms are being built for the 'wrong' reasons. The 'renewables subsidy' is encouraging the construction of wind farms by distorting the economics, and means that they are being constructed because they will bring profit to the operators rather than for 'green' reasons. I really don't believe that many companies, particularly large ones, are anywhere near as 'green' in their motivations as they pretend to be. They are in business first and foremost to make money.

But conceding that point to the opponents doesn't mean that they win their case. Doing something for the 'wrong' reason doesn't mean that it's the wrong thing to do.

Another of the arguments used by opponents is that wind farms only produce electricity when the wind is blowing; and the times when the wind is blowing don't necessarily coincide with the times when the electricity is needed. This in turn means that conventional power stations need to be kept on standby, so that electricity is available when required.

It's a powerful argument. And it underlines the way in which sight has been lost of the real target. The original objective was surely to do with reducing our carbon footprint. That has been 'translated' into a target that a percentage of our electricity needs is met from renewable sources, and using windpower helps to achieve that secondary target. But it doesn't help to achieve the original goal unless we actually succeed in closing, or at least turning off, conventional power stations as well.

Again, however, conceding the merit of that argument still doesn't mean that building wind farms is the wrong thing to do. What it does mean is that we need a more integrated and coherent energy policy.

One of the problems with electricity is that it's not easy to store; it generally has to be used when it is produced. There are some ways of 'storing' electricity – the pumped storage scheme at Dinorwig is an excellent example. And there are other ways of 'storing' electricity as well – one of them, for instance, is to use surpluses to extract hydrogen (for fuel cells) from water, a technology which holds a great deal of promise for the future.

Why don't we have an integrated energy policy? Ultimately, because the then Tory government fragmented and privatised the electricity supply industry. Each of the companies is competing to sell its electricity to the customers. Each of them has a direct interest in beating its competitors; none of them has a real vested interest in an overall strategy for supply. And the government has abdicated its own responsibility in that regard to the 'market', with a few subsidies and incentives thrown in to try and encourage particular approaches.

Wind energy has a key role to play, but it can only play its proper role as part of a planned approach to securing our energy supplies. And we'll only get that when government accepts its responsibility for producing a plan and insisting on its implementation, rather than simply setting targets and leaving the implementation to the whim of the market.