The National Context

This is not a decision about wind power or no wind power.  The issue is whether this huge industrial development is sensibly located as proposed. 

In 2009, without public consultation, the Crown Estate allocated 9 new "Round 3" zones for possible offshore wind power generation.  Navitus Bay is zone 7. The total area is a staggering 27000sq. km, or 30% bigger than the whole of Wales.

Whereas most of the zones are far offshore, outside the 12 nautical mile limit (13.8 miles), zones 6, 7 & 8 in the south are almost entirely closer than this. About two-thirds of Navitus Bay's current plan is closer than 12nm despite its highly sensitive location.

The potential capacity of the offshore zones (i.e. excluding zones 6, 7 & 8 entirely) is huge. In fact, if just about one fifth of the offshore zones' area were developed, the zones would accommodate the Crown Estate's budgetted capacity of around 32GW.

Compared with most other Round 3 zones, Navitus Bay is close to the coast in a highly sensitive area with a thriving local economy dependent quite heavily on the character of the region.  So, why would we choose to develop zones with large negative impacts when better alternatives appear to exist? 

Government Plans

The government does not have specific targets for wind power.  Wind power is just one possible "renewable" technology, and the long-term aim is to use the cheapest technologies to reach targets for carbon dioxide emission reductions.  It is expected, however, that wind power will be a significant contributor to the total, especially if costs can be brought below £100/MWh.  The 2020 target for 15% of UK energy to come from renewables should already be met from existing schemes, schemes under construction, and consented but not yet operational schemes.

One way of improving the cost/benefit ratio for wind farms is to link many of them together in an offshore grid.  This would be feasible in the North Sea, where UK wind farms and those of other countries such as Denmark and Germany could be linked.  This has several potential advantages

• supply is "smoothed out" over a wider geographic area so the output from the collection of wind farms is less variable
• demand is "smoothed out" by sharing demand across several countries with different demand profiles
• equipment is not duplicated
• fewer cable runs ashore are needed.
  

It is expected that these steps would both reduce cost and make the wind farms more compatible with the operation of the National Grid, which cannot cope with too much variability.  It also makes sense to concentrate resources in one area to minimise construction timescales and costs.

Are we NIMBYs?

Most power is consumed in cities; most wind farms are in rural areas.  No-one is suggesting that London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. should be surrounded with wind turbines or be hosts to most of the new nuclear power stations, but does that make their inhabitants implicitly nimbys?  We think accusations of nimbyism are a diversion from looking at the facts and asking the question "Is this the best way of achieving our national objectives?".  When it comes to the current Navitus Bay proposal, we argue that it is not.  We think national goals can still be achieved without causing such a large impact on the region's character (and possibly, as a consequence, its economy).