Letters / Waste of money
Let me be clear from the start that I do not speak for Sustainable Shetland.
Chris Bunyan (Cable vital for renewables; SN, 11/2/14) makes an eloquent case against wind power with his argument.
Shetland’s grid cannot cope with more wind renewables than we have at present because, until a reliable storage method can be found, wind power can only provide the base load – the minimum requirement during the day.
Any more than that will overload the grid at times when the power is not needed. The remainder has to come from somewhere else. There always has to be 100 per cent backup in case there is no wind.
Exactly the same applies on a larger scale for the whole of the UK. If wind power supplies more than the grid can cope with, some turbines have to be turned off and we have the ridiculous situation of having to pay the owners for not producing.
This already happens in Scotland. An already expensive way to produce electricity is made more expensive by the nature of the contracts.
Wind power is only commercially viable with government subsidies. Think of a wind farm as a subsidy farm and you have a better picture. The cost of those subsidies is passed straight on to us in the form of increases in our electricity bills. Future generations will laugh at our gullibility in falling for this ‘green’ agenda driven by government collusion with big business.
Connecting a small island with a larger one is not going to make the basic problem go away. The interconnector in my view is a total waste of money.
Stuart Hill
Cunningsburgh
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