Wind double subsidised

In a letter to the Sunday Telegraph -June 23rd-Roger Helmer calls for this lunacy to stop.

SIR – I would like to add a further point to support your excellent report on the eye-watering costs of wind farms.

Because wind is intermittent, it requires conventional back-up, and that back-up must also run intermittently to complement wind. But the back-up (typically gas) is very inefficient when run intermittently. Like most large-scale industrial processes, it works best when run consistently. Thus the net energy contribution from wind farms, and the claimed reductions in emissions, are largely offset by the inefficiencies in the back-up.
Worse than that, the EU is now talking about “capacity payments” to compensate back-up gas-fired power stations for down-time when the wind blows – otherwise such power stations would be uneconomic and could not be financed.

In effect, we are subsidising wind farms twice over, saving no emissions, but driving prices up, driving industries abroad, and driving pensioners into fuel poverty. This lunacy must stop.

Roger Helmer MEP (UKIP)
Market Harborough, Leicestershire