Wales - Bold vision needs political framework

Wales’s leading renewable business body, BWEA Cymru today expressed concern over a lack of progress in developing wind farms in Wales. Releasing a progress report ‘Wind energy in Wales: State of the Industry’ at its annual conference in Cardiff, BWEA Cymru highlighted the low level of approvals for wind energy projects in Wales.

Maria McCaffery MBE, BWEA Chief Executive said:

“Wales is missing out on its potential to be a Green Celtic Tiger Economy. The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) wants Wales to be self sufficient in renewable energy by 2028. That bold vision requires the right political decisions to approve planning applications on the ground. As it stands today, decisions are just not being made.”

Scotland and Northern Ireland are set to meet their targets for wind energy, but Wales will miss its own 2010 target for installing an extra 800 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity. Less than 250MW have been approved since the target was set in 2005, and barely 100MW have actually been built.

The Report exposes the backlog in granting planning permission for wind farms by local councils in Wales. The report recommends that the Welsh Assembly Government makes a renewed effort to get the Councils to shorten the time it takes to determine these schemes to approve, which on average take over a year.

WAG has stated that they are committed to revising the renewable energy targets in the TAN8 planning document, with a new Energy Strategy due later this year - but raising targets will not be sufficient unless the problems resulting in the failure to reach existing targets is addressed.

In the longer term The Forestry Commission of Wales is releasing land for wind farm development and this could create up to 700 megawatts of capacity. The bulk of these sites will be decided under a new fast track regime by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) set up by the UK Government under the 2008 Planning Act. Under the Act, schemes of over 50 MW will be decided by the IPC, while the councils will remain responsible for applications of less than 50 MW.

New sites for offshore wind farms are currently being identified in the Irish and Celtic seas. Supplying these will give the long term potential for the Welsh manufacturing base supplying the UK wind industry - which could lead to thousands of new jobs and millions of pounds of investments.

Llywelyn Rhys, Head of BWEA Cymru, said:

“Wales should seize the opportunity to revive its manufacturing base and set an example for the rest of the UK and Europe by embracing a clean energy revolution and say YES to wind.”

For more information please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net