Wind Energy Breaks Records And Gains Support In UK
The UK wind industry is booming, according to latest figures and surveys which show that not only was January another bumper month for the industry, but it is also getting increased public support.
The UK’s renewable energy trade body, RenewableUK, provided details on two separate announcements this past week, starting with new figures from National Grid for January, which showed that wind energy broke new records for weekly, monthly, and half-hourly generation.
According to figures from National Grid, January was the UK’s most productive month ever for wind energy, generating 4.13 terawatt hours, or 14% of Britain’s electricity — that’s enough to power the equivalent of 8.7 million UK homes.
January also saw the breaking of the weekly record, with 1,119 GWh generated, and half-hourly records on the 2nd of January, when wind energy supplied 31% of the country’s electricity demand.
“The past few months have seen significantly high levels of generation for wind energy and January was no exception,” said RenewableUK’s Director of External Affairs, Jennifer Webber. “It’s great to see wind making such a positive contribution to Britain’s clean energy needs at a cold time of year when we need it most, and this can only continue with greater capacity coming online – reaching 12 gigawatts is an achievement which the industry and the nation can be proud of.”
A day later, a new survey released by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change showed that support for onshore wind farms had increased to 68% of the public, while total opposition dropped to its lowest level of 10%.
The survey also showed that support for offshore wind remained solid at 74%, as well as an increase in support for the country’s wave and tidal energy industry, which crept up to 74% as well.
Thankfully, public support for fracking dropped to 24%.
“It’s great to see public support for onshore wind is increasing, with more than two-thirds of people consistently saying they want Britain to make use of it, and that support for offshore wind and wave & tidal energy remains even higher,” said RenewableUK’s Director of Policy, Dr Gordon Edge.
“That’s why it’s so hard to understand why the Conservative party is turning its back on onshore wind, threatening to kill off the industry if it wins the next election. Independent polls show that David Cameron is totally wrong to claim that people are “fed up with” onshore wind – they show the reverse is actually true, and that being anti-wind is a net vote loser.”
And it’s a big issue, as RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, discussed in a recent piece she wrote for BusinessGreen.
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Excellent news! Let’s hope the benefit will be quickly passed on to the long-suffering consumer. Just yesterday a Which? Report made the main news stating that failure to bring down domestic fuel prices down last year in line with the fall in wholesale prices resulted in an average overcharge of £145 per household, the same day that a spike in death rates was reported for January, allegedly down to influenza.
The conservatives’ political backwardness on wind and solar is an albatross that will weigh more and more heavily against them over the coming years. A former conservative myself, I will never vote for these buffoons again as long as they continue to deny climate change and attack alternative energy.
I see the Green Party is now making an impact with its renewable policy manifesto.
This damn website is 100% against conservatives.
Why do all “conservatives” have to be against renewable energy — this is NOT always the case, maybe a majority of the time, but NOT all the time.
This website is not against conservatives, it just points out the obvious climate change denial and anti renewable energy actions of the conservative parties. They have also been glad to carry pieces discussing how the conservative Green Tea Party has helped to encourage grid scale and rooftop solar in the state of Georgia in the US.
If you are aware of stories where either individual conservatives, or a conservative political party are doing something about helping to encourage renewable energy or doing something to help prevent the coming climate crisis from human actions within the environment then please write them up and submit them to Zach. I am sure that he would be willing to consider anything that is helping to contribute to the development of cleantech around the world.
– ‘Obvious anti-renewable actions of conservative parties’. What’s obvious about those? Despite some nasty comments by the Tories about onshore wind, the current government has kept support for renewable energy and has presided over an unprecented boom in both wind and solar.
Too often, politicians are judged on what they say. Sure, Conservative parties the world over say silly things to appease their core electorate. When it comes to policy, however, conservatives have proven every bit as willing to do the right thing as left-leaning parties across Europe (the UK, but also Belgium, the Netherlands and of course Germany).
There is nothing inherently left-wing about environmentalism. Conservatives are generally concerned about the environment, they just favor different methods of achieving their objectives.
It’s funny how this site rarely mentions that Germany has a deeply conservative government (and a socialist party that favors coal because of its ties with the coal unions), but keeps stressing that Australia has one.
There is a clear left-wing bias, which I can perfectly understand by the way – I’d be left-leaning too if I lived in the US.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
We like our organic grown food and buy from local farmers.
Communication and actions should be coherent. You can’t speak one thing and do another.
Btw, spanish conservative government has retroactively reduced FiT and imposed tax on solar. So it really depends on which country you’re looking at.
Thank you for the smiles, I can’t wait to tell friends and family that I am actually a left leaning liberal, when all these years I have thought of myself as a quite conservative realist.
But I suppose that it all just really depends on each person’s own perspective and experience.
It must also be perspective individual to each of us about how much this site discusses German politics, because to me it seems that I have learned more here or by being guided to further information from here (sometimes by you) than what is found in the other US media.
My original comment, to someone else was that just because this site points out the climate denial, or anti renewable actions or words of some conservative politicians or parties does not mean that it is biased against conservatives. It is just pointing out reality and to my mind it is a very conservative position to be concerned with realism. It is realistic that countries and individuals should be concerned about energy independence. It is also very realistic to try to preserve our environment and not allow individuals or countries to ruin or destroy what we all need to share. To me this is a very conservative position, so to point out people or parties whose words or actions are not in the best interests of all is necessary and responsible. And as I told the original poster, if you are aware of individual conservatives or parties that are promoting cleantech for renewable energy or towards preventing climate change, please pass on the stories or information. I am sure that Zach and all of us would like to hear about it.
Yes, why do they? Surely David Cameron’s, or Stephen Harper’s, or Mitch McConnell’s policy choices are not controlled by Zach Shahan or Josh Hill?
I would say wanting to maintain the composition of the atmosphere as it has been for the bulk of history is a very conservative position, which would make this a conservative website. But there is a lot of confusion over terminology. For example, In my own country the term conservative is often used to refer to people who actively seek to alter the composition of the atmosphere.
Even if you are a luddite that rejects climate change, you’d think that conservatives would at least support renewables to reduce their dependence on Vladimir Putin and mid-east oil sheiks. But their policies often seem based on blindly opposing anything liberals suggest without deeply thinking about it.
Why would people oppose wind energy in Europe . . . do you want to make yourselves more dependent on Putin?!?!? The wind is free, domestic, clean, and renewable. Use it.
Once again we have proven that conservatives are wrong about renewable energy. Records are being broken every day. Imagine if the wind and solar industry had 100 years of time, and subsidies to develop like the dirty fossil fuel industry has. We would have 100% renewable energy all over the world. Unfortunately some leaders like Australia’s Abbott, and some politicians in England, have their heads in the sand, and continue to worship dirty fossil fuels, as they pollute our planet.