Letter: Electric wind-up

I have been warned by my supplier that the price of my electricity will be increased by 11 per cent next month, partly because of "the cost of the environmental and social schemes we are obliged to implement". A phone conversation confirmed that this referred to its obligation to buy electricity from wind farms whenever it happens to be available.

Wind power is intermittent, unpredictable, unreliable and expensive. No matter how many turbines are built, not a single existing power station can be closed, because they supply the 24/7 reliable power that we expect, and that wind power cannot. It simply is not needed by energy suppliers like mine.

I object to having to subsidise in my bill wind farm developers, whose industrial-scale turbines despoil the hill and upland landscape that we love and that offers recreation to us and our visitors, and income to our tourist industry.

Ronnie Cramond

Oswald Road

Edinburgh