The great British wind scam: the government responds

Even the most ardent supporters of renewable energy would agree that wind turbines should be erected only when the output is worthwhile. If a huge rotating beast is to blot a corner of the British countryside, then it must produce as much energy as is feasibly possible.

However, this does not appear always to be the case. In my article for this week’s Spectator, we uncover an abuse of government subsidies, in which green developers erect large turbines and then throttle the output (known as ‘de-rating’) in order to maximise profits:

‘Under the government’s Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme, which aims to make renewable energies competitive with fossil fuels, the size of a turbine is measured not by height but by power output. If a turbine pumps out more than 500kW, its owners receive 9.5p per kilowatt hour. But a ‘smaller’ sub-500kW one receives a subsidy of 17.5p per kilowatt hour, supposedly to compensate for its lower efficiency. The idea is to lure smaller wind-power producers into the market.