Aileen Jackson (Letters, 27 July) is right to be concerned about the proposed re-powering of Whitelee Wind Farm.
Since 2010 Whitelee has received more than £165 million in constraints payments. In the first six months of this year alone it received almost £2.9m for not producing power. In two years (2015 and 2020) it received well over £20m per annum for doing nothing.
Whitelee’s Spanish owners certainly know how to milk the system. Their website is coy about funding, but the existing wind farm benefits from subsidies under the Renewables Obligation scheme.
They also have a Contract for Difference (CFD) with a strike price of £188.56 per MWH (which is way above the average price of electricity) for Whitelee’s 7MW “green” hydrogen facility.
They will almost certainly seek a 20-year contract with state-guaranteed funding under the CFD scheme for the proposed “re-powering” of the site. The latest allocation round (AR8) under the CFD scheme offers onshore wind a guaranteed strike price of £92 per MWH (in 2024 prices). Future rounds will almost certainly offer higher strike prices.
And of course new bigger turbines will still be constrained –paid to turn off–on a regular basis. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Mark Hodgson Cumbria
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