WORLDWIDE . RENEWABLES
In its latest analysis of renewable energy investment opportunities (see table below) Ernst & Young finds the UK to be currently the most attractive country for investment in offshore windparks.
This assessment is based on the natural wind resources, the government’s extension of the Renewables Obligation, and the recent Round 2 announcement of options on seabed leases for development.
The Ernst & Young analysis also showed the UK as the most attractive country to invest in wind power generally, while Spain was the best country in which to invest in renewable energy as a whole.
…but stealth wind turbine required
The Royal Society has warned that the government’s targets for developing renewable energy in the UK may be at risk if the Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to oppose the building of new wind farms.
In 2003, the MoD opposed 413 (48%) of the 861 pre-application wind farm proposals submitted, because of its concerns about interference with air defence radar. In 2001 it objected to 41% of proposals, and in 2002, 40%.
Professor David Wallace, vice-president of the Royal Society, has written to Ivor Caplin, the minister responsible for defence estates, to seek greater progress in finding solutions to the potential problems posed by wind turbines to air defence radar, noting that ‘ … current MoD policy appears to reject any wind development application within 74 km of air defence radars. With 13 such installations, this effective moratorium covers a fairly significant area of the UK. The restrictions imposed by the MoD are at odds with the rest of Europe, where only Germany imposes a ban, which is set at 5 km.”
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) is encouraging the commissioning of studies to assess advanced radar filters which, while expensive, might prove to be a substantial step towards a solution in many areas.
A study funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and conducted by QinetiQ to predict the levels and types of interference between windfarms and radar systems concluded that wind turbines have a large radar cross section, but that this could be mitigated through windfarm design, software fixes for radar systems, and the use of wind turbine blades with low radar signatures – stealth wind turbine blades.
Royal Navy operators seem to be free of any problems in this connection with their technology, stating specifically that they can track planes through windfarms. Against that however is that radar sets installed in aircraft are substantially less sophisticated than ship or land based sets.