I REFER to the letter from Kate Wadge of Sandford in the Courier of June 21 in which she attempts to justify the use of single wind turbines on farms.

I feel that with the current proliferation of turbine applications in Mid Devon it is important that anyone going into print has done their homework. This is not the case with this letter.

I speak as a professional power system engineer who for 40 years was engaged in all aspects of bringing power to the south west.

Without doubt our landscape is truly being wrecked in the interests of the quick buck without any real benefit to green energy. In fact the term "Greed Energy" is more appropriate.

Perhaps Kate Wadge can justify how a small 55kW turbine, that for most of the time can only supply one property, can reap in between £45,000 and £68,000 per annum for a farmer from Feed in Tariff subsidies?

The more power is wasted on the farm the more money is made! Or indeed why a landowner should receive between £40,000 and £60,000 per annum for renting out land for a large turbine, when as she says, the turbine will have a very small footprint on the ground and will still allow normal farming to carry on around it?

Even David Cameron in PM's Question Time on June 12 questioned the sanity of the coalition's approach to onshore wind.

She attempts to justify the actions of landowners by saying that a wind turbine could be compared with a caravan park or an intensive livestock unit.

Both of these are justified uses of the land, one benefitting, not destroying, tourism and the other producing food for the nation and not relying on crazy subsidies.

As far as supplying green energy to the grid think again. On the continent large wind farms feed directly into the grid at very high transmission voltages such as the 132,000 volts to 400,000 volts used in the UK.

However isolated turbines on farms here are connected to the much lower voltage of 11,000 volts and most of the power is lost in warming the cables before it gets anywhere near the grid.

She mentions the apparent success of wind power in Germany.

Unfortunately the German obsession with wind and solar is now causing serious problems with the stability of the German grid system. In 2011 German wind turbines had a total of 29GW of capacity, around a quarter of the average total demand, but they were so inefficient that they only averaged 5GW of output.

But they had to be backed up with 29GW of fossil fuel power stations spinning away on line in case the wind died. These fossil stations were then running very inefficiently and producing more CO2 than the wind power can save.

The disaster of wind has forced Germany to build 16 new coal-fired plants and 15 gas plants in such a hurry that they have abandoned the concept of "carbon capture and storage" which would allow a sensible continuation of the use of conventional generation.

Furthermore, a recent scientific paper shows that the expected output from wind turbines drops dramatically in a relatively short time due to breakdowns and wear and tear.

I do agree that the amount of subsidy for fossil fuel energy is far greater than for wind energy but it is important to understand the reasons for this. In the UK by far the largest amount of energy subsidy (around four billion) is that paid to reduce the VAT on oil, electricity and gas from 20 per cent to five per cent.

Obviously the amount credited to wind will be very low as the output of wind power is such a small percentage of our total electricity needs.

Furthermore this subsidy for fossil energy is designed to reduce consumer's bills whereas the subsidy paid to developers for wind and solar does just the reverse and completely destroys the reduction in VAT for these energy sources.

Dotting the countryside with wind farms does nothing for the environment. And for those who are not reaping in the profits? - they have to expect a reduction in their property values and an increase in their fuel bills, in addition to helping to pay for the existing, but fully justified, subsidies for conventional farming.

As far as the rush for wind is concerned the "Telegraph" correctly stated recently that there are two types of landowners - "those that care about their neighbours and those who don't give a hoot!" Fortunately we are very thankful, that in our immediate area, there are many more of the former than the latter.

John Dike BSc MIET

Coldridge

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