Labour is well placed to embarrass the Tories by attacking
the Government’s war on the onshore wind industry in the UK. Despite onshore
wind now being the cheapest widely available electricity source the Government
is actively sabotaging the industry by refusing to allow long term contracts to
be issued to wind developers. Meanwhile large subsidies are being offered to
gas, coal and nuclear power stations.
Under the last Labour Government incentives were given to
build up a large increase in onshore wind power, which now supplies around a
tenth of UK’s electricity supply, with offshore wind and solar farms now
supplying around another ten per cent of UK electricity. But right wing English
Tory pressure has prevented any move towards enabling long term contracts to be
issued so that new windfarms can be financed. Meanwhile the UK risks becoming
increasingly dependent on supplies of gas from places like Russia and Qatar.
The Labour frontbench is beginning to realise that young
people in particular want to see green energy being given a chance, and, for
example, John McDonnell has recently attacked the Tories for failing to doing anything to revive support for the
feed-in tariff scheme that helped people install solar panels on their roofs.
But attention ought also to be turned to promoting onshore windfamrs. Doing so
would embarrass the Government and also sow division inside the Tory ranks.
More practically, it would offer hope to people who are working in the industry
that they might have a future. Places like Grimsby are benefitting from
offshore wind projects which are still being built, but onshore wind factories
are being closed down, the latest being the Glasgow based Gaia Wind.
Independent experts say that onshore wind can be built
costing the consumer less than new large gas fired power stations. However orders have dried up because the Government is
refusing to organise long term guarantees of prices paid for electricity to be
generated by the wind farms. Long term contracts are needed because the
technology is capital intensive meaning that while the wind is free, the money
for the equipment needs to be paid for at the start of the project. Hence effective
(say 15 year) long term price guarantees are needed to persuade banks to offer
loans to support windfarm construction.
The majority of the capacity of UK’s onshore windfarms have
been installed in Scotland. Despite the fact that the Scottish Government is
keen to have more windfarms, control over what contracts are issued for
electricity supply rests with Westminster. Yet it is English Tory MPs, often
allied to the climate-sceptic Nigel Lawson and his ‘Global Warming Policy
Foundation’, that are preventing the Government from providing opportunities for onshore wind.
The Minister of State for Energy, Claire Perry, has, in recent months, been making some encouraging noises about providing some 'contracts for differences', CFDs as they are know in trade-jargon, available for onshore wind. They were available for onshore wind when the CfD system was launched in early 2015 but since then, while some offshore wind contracts have been awarded, onshore wind has been carved out of bidding for such contracts. Yet Perry appears to lack the required political clout to do much that changes anything, especially to overcome the vocal hostility of the climate-and-wind sceptical group of Tory MPs.
Making a priority of
embarrassing the Government over this issue should be a win-win situation for
Labour. Renewable energy, including wind power, is very popular among all
voters, especially with young voters. On the other hand by supporting onshore
wind Labour can proclaim it is promoting consumer interests of obtaining
electricity - above all clean energy – from the cheapest possible source.
Attacking the Government for its failure to support onshore wind is a very good
way of taking votes from the Tories. Please, John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn,
spend some time on this! Put some real wind up the Tories!
