Threat to cost of living
The article by Martin Williams (“Extra £150 goes on energy bills to switch off and on generators including wind farms”, The Herald, June 30) highlights how generator costs impact on consumer bills ( £395 million over the past two years ). This, however, is merely a portent of the crippling price increases arising from the SNP energy plan issued in the Spring of 2023.
The Energy Secretary plans to increase the capacity of Scottish windmills from 13GW to 58GW without any reference to the fact that, even with a 400% increase in capacity, there will still be no electricity generated when the wind fails to blow. This means consumers are faced with billions of pounds of additional debt to install a further 25GW of gas turbine output to keep the lights on in Scotland. Why bother with unreliable, inefficient windmills when gas turbine technology is all that is required?
Over warm summer evenings, system demand will only require around 15GW of capacity meaning 68GW of plant will sit idle whilst being paid constraint payments to company shareholders yet giving back nothing to the consumer. Why does Holyrood fail to accept that, whilst going green means going poor, 58GW of windmills is a poor investment especially as most of the debt will be repaid by those in fuel poverty?
Note also that as electricity is four times that of gas, then a ban on fossil fuels will see an escalation in energy bills that will impact badly on the cost-of-living in Scotland.
Ian Moir, Castle Douglas
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