YOU report, correctly, that there was no new onshore wind capacity completed in Scotland in the second half of 2019 (“”Wind power growth at a standstill”, The Herald, April 6). This is part of a narrative being pushed by Scottish Renewables to create a panicked reaction in government and planning authorities that climate change targets might be missed.
There is more than eight gigawatts of wind capacity in Scotland with planning consent, roughly half-and-half onshore and offshore. This compares with just over 9GW currently operational. So even without counting any of the nearly 4GW awaiting a planning decision, the potential is there for wind generation capacity in Scotland to nearly double.
Why is it not happening? In the fake commercial world of electricity supply the companies with consent to build capacity are reluctant to do so without guarantees that they’ll make lots of money. They do not want to compete in a market. They want electricity consumers – that’s every one of us – to guarantee their profits for decades to come and to pay for the costly undersea and overland connections needed to transmit electricity from distant sources to where it’s actually consumed. What happened to risk-taking capitalism?
David Gordon
Scone
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