Wind farms breezing through Britain

GREEN energy produced by wind farms around Britain is to increase by almost 50% by the end of the year. Nearly 500 megawatts of power is due to come on line from 10 new sites in the next six months, compared with the 1000MW from wind farms that have been installed in the past 14 years.

The rapid acceleration of Britain's windpower capabilities will see the title of biggest onshore wind farm change hands twice in the coming months. Britain's most expensive wind farm to date, off the coast of Kent, is set to be commissioned as well.

Britain is trying desperately to catch up with its commitment to produce 10% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2010.

Wind power makes up less than 1% of the total production but the country last week exceeded one gigawatt for the first time.

The opening last week of the 39-turbine Cefn Croes wind farm at Ceredigion in Wales made the site Britain's largest onshore installation with a capacity of nearly 60MW. It is run by Italian company Falck.

But it will be overtaken in September by the first phase of Black Law in Lanarkshire, a Scottish Power installation capable of producing almost 100MW.

The project has been delayed by fears the 42 turbines will play havoc with the radar of planes coming in to land at nearby Edinburgh airport.

Later in the year, however, that project is expected to be trumped by arch-rival Scottish & Southern Energy with a 52-turbine, 120MW wind farm at Hadyard Hill on Scotland's west coast.

Britain's most expensive wind farm to date, a 30-turbine installation on the Kentish Flats five miles off Whitstable, is costing at least £100m. It is also due to be up and running by the end of the year.

It is smaller, at 90MW, than Hadyard Hill but the technical difficulties of constructing wind farms offshore make them at least 50% more expensive. The Kentish Flats wind farm is owned by Swedish energy group Vattenfall.

'Wind energy in the UK has now firmly arrived,' said British Wind Energy Association chief executive Marcus Rand. 'We anticipate a further six gigawatts of new wind projects will be up and running in the UK by the end of the 2010, split evenly between onshore and offshore developments.'

London Array, a joint venture between Powergen's German parent E.On and oil major Shell, this month tabled official plans for a £1.5bn, 270-turbine, 1000MW wind farm in the Thames Estuary that would be capable of powering about a quarter of London's homes.

While a boom in offshore installations is forecast, farms off the coast are seen as far riskier, both technically and financially.

Credit agency Standard & Poor's has declined to give a rating to any British wind farm.

It blames political and planning risk and doubts over the cost of getting the power from wind farms piped into the National Grid in an affordable manner.

While the economics of wind farms remain under question, the big energy companies are investing heavily in them because, on pain of financial penalties, 10% of the electricity they produce will have to come from renewable sources.