Letter to the Western Mail - wind power (response to Dr J Etherington)

Dear Editor,

SIR - Dr John Etherington questions our claim that "Falling onshore wind prices.... will actually reduce consumer bills in the coming years as gas generation prices rise and the UK becomes a major gas importer" (Letters, October 22).

Currently, cheap CCGT (gas generated) electricity costs about 2.2 p/kWhr and is the price to beat to reduce consumer bills. The latest onshore windfarms are generating at about 2.9 p/kWhr and prices are forecast to fall due to production cost reductions to an average of about 2 pence and as low as 1.5 p/kWhr on windier sites. Meanwhile, gas prices are rising due to increasing demand and dwindling across Europe. Indeed, the UK may become a net gas importer within three years. The Cabinet Office's cost review for the Energy White Paper (see www.number-10.gov.uk/su/energy/20.html) forecasts that onshore windfarms will be marginally cheaper than gas in 2020.

If levies on the carbon dioxide emissions from gas, or about 1 p/kWhr for their sequestration, were included in domestic bills, plus the cost of higher transmission losses, then onshore wind would be as cheap as gas now. Yet Dr Etherington appears to regard levies on dangerous global warming and acid gas emissions, which are causing real economic harm and costs, habitat stress and human suffering, as a subsidy to safe wind energy.

Consumers will likely pay slightly more in future whatever new type of generating plant is built because few technologies will be able to compete with this age of cheap gas and long-subsidised coal and nuclear stations. The new energy policies are worth serious money to the UK renewables industry because the Renewables Obligation and capital grants are designed to encourage the relatively higher cost renewables. These include biomass, some tidal technologies and offshore wind farms in deeper waters. Surely Dr Etherington should be praising such policies not castigating them?

Yours sincerely,

Neil Crumpton
Energy Spokesperson
Friends of the Earth Cymru
13 Stryd Cefnfaes, Bethesda, Gwynedd