UK wind resources ‘best in Europe’

Leading UK renewable energy trade body, BWEA today criticised ‘ill informed and disingenuous’ claims on the viability of the UK wind energy industry.

Responding to reports on the BBC that UK wind farms are underperforming the BWEA Chief Executive Maria McCaffery said

‘The UK has the best wind resource in Europe. These claims are absolute nonsense, the wind energy industry is investing billions of pounds to produce clean power in the UK to tackle climate change.’

The BWEA Chief Executive rebutted claims about wind energy as ‘bizarre pseudo-science’, specifically she pointed out that:

- There is no Government subsidy for building wind farms. As much as £2 billion of private investment has been made in the UK wind industry.
- The support mechanism – Renewable Obligations Certificates (ROC) - is only available for electricity that wind farms have already produced and supplied to utilities
- In 30 years of monitoring there have been no days when the wind has not blown throughout the UK.
- Wind farms generate power for approximately 85% of the time.
The wind supplies over 2 GW of electricity in the UK, which is 1.5% of UK electricity needs.