I AM afraid it is Tom Cassells (Letters, October 18) who does not “have a
clue how the energy industry works” and I would suggest he refers to the
Renewable Energy Forum website for a little lesson as this contains a
detailed explanation of the constraints payments system with links to the
Balancing Mechanism and other informative sites.
The data on constraints can also be obtained from this site and by last
week the total for the whole of the UK was just under £835 million, of
which Scotland accounts for just under £773m (it is increasing all the
time). The rest of the UK paid only £62m. These figures are what is paid to
windfarms to switch their turbines off when the Grid cannot take the
electricity. This is not the total, as other windfarm payments are kept
secret for “commercial confidentiality”. Payments to other forms of
generation are a different system entirely.
Currently the whole UK renewable electricity subsidy bill, which includes
constraint payments, is shared across the UK. If Scotland becomes
independent this cost will be separated like so many other things; there is
no chance those south of the Border will purchase the resultant high-cost
electricity.
Unfortunately Scotland’s energy policy allows more windfarms to be
constructed even while existing windfarms, both on and offshore, are being
paid not to generate. This includes building extensions to windfarms
already being constrained off.
Brenda Herrick, Thurso.
TOM Cassels (Letters, October 18) seems to think that a windmill is a
turbine like a steam turbine. Not true. A real turbine always involves
compression – of steam, or exhaust gas in a diesel or petrol engine by a
turbocharger. A wind “turbine” just drives through a gearbox. Mr Cassels
may be in favour of wind power but on October 18 the thousands of wind
machines throughout Britain were only producing 1.9 per cent of UK
electricity. Around where I live there are three visible wind farms and I
could see that their blades were all stationary.
William Loneskie, Lauder
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