Graham Brown: Secure energy for future is in the mix

Decades of indecision have left us in a situation where 25 per cent of the UK’s conventional coal, gas and nuclear plants are due for closure by 2021.

As the recent news showed, getting new conventional plant built that doesn’t harm the environment is no easy task. The carbon capture and storage trial at Longannet was dropped, while the proposal at Hunterston has received 20,000 objections.

Meanwhile, the daily barrage against wind energy continues in parts of the press. Subsidies for wind farms, we are told, are adding “hundreds of pounds” to our energy bills.

However, figures revealed by UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne showed that the cost to consumers of the renewables obligation (RO) which encourages investment in sources such as wind, amounted to £5 or £6 on the average annual UK electricity bill – just 1 per cent of the total.

On the same day, Mr Huhne announced a 10 per cent cut in RO support for onshore wind farms. This is because, as it becomes more established, onshore wind is requiring fewer subsidies.

By far the biggest driver of rising utility bills has been the unrelenting increase in coal, oil and gas prices. These resources will only continue to become scarcer and more expensive.

Wind, however, is a free resource that allows us to produce our own electricity rather than relying increasingly on costly fossil fuel imports.

The question for die-hard opponents of wind energy is: what’s your alternative? Other renewables like tidal and wave power are in their infancy. Nuclear power, while attractive in some ways, has downsides – not least exorbitant decommissioning costs and a finite fuel supply.

In the long run, we need a mix of energy sources and wind power must play a part, especially as Scotland has 25 per cent of Europe’s wind resource.

Unless we get serious about our energy future, we may find out soon that it is a luxury, not a right.

• Graham Brown is chairman of Burcote Wind