Grid Connection. The requested method and details concerning connection to the National Grid structure’ are not specified. Instead we are told that these will be provided (logically be it said) following ‘usual practice’ in a second application. It is noted that the suggested route is almost entirely a matter for neighbouring planning authorities to determine. The applicant has submitted insufficient information on the likely route for the grid connection; as such the proposal is contrary to paragraph 99 of the Technical Annexe: Wind of the Companion to PPS22.
Misleading consultation. In its consultation exercise, Nuon company have persistently overestimated the potential energy harvest from the site. They also make some very misleading statements about whether or not ‘subsidy’ is involved in its operations. In the Statement of Community Involvement Nuon have used extremely lax social survey methods to justify ludicrous and entirely incorrect claims about the community response which they assert to be roughly in balance for and against.. A better controlled survey conducted by Maidwell and Draughton Parish Council in 2008 distributed to every household in the two villages most affected received responses that were 84% against the proposal. A further poll after a public debate in the same parish on Monday 30th March 2009 gave a similar proportion against.
Energy Generation:
Standard BERR wind energy data base at the top of the development site is 5.7m/s at 10 meters. It is a matter for observation that speeds to the east, on the old airstrip, and west, down the hill towards the Brampton Valley Way, are lower. The 5.7m/s value therefore applies only to the two uppermost turbines, the remaining five being sited in a much lower wind regime with predicted winds at 10m of around 5.3-5.5 m/s. At 45m, which is the highest level above ground for which there are estimates, the values range from 6.9m/s at the top of the site to 6.6m/s in the valley to the west. The developers have claimed that their proposal has been evaluated against a 6.2m/s threshold, but no further detail is given. It should be clear that to harvest even a reasonable amount of energy at the site it is necessary to build very high turbines of a size and scale that as yet have not been seen in the county.
On these grounds alone it would seem unlikely that the proposed development will achieve a load factor much above 20%-25%. The Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Nuon between 2002 and April 23, 2008, was Ludo van Halderen, who said early in 2008: “Wind energy should be developed where it makes sense instead of seeing wind farms receiving substantial subsidies in countries where they run for barely a fifth of the year - a load factor of 23%.” [Ludo van Halderen: Responding to Climate Change, www.rtcc.org/2008/html]
In other words, the former Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board of a the parent company of that making this application - while in office - revealed that the load factors likely to apply in this case do not make sense.
Our view is that the contribution this scheme might make to national, still less global, carbon reduction simply does not justify the despoliation of this beautiful and valuable part of the English countryside. Put simply and directly, wind power is not the solution to UK’s current energy difficulties: it is fast becoming part of the problem. First, a simple calculation shows that to replace the equivalent of the total UK domestic consumption of electricity with wind energy would require around 3,000 developments similar to that proposed. Second, the energy supply from wind is in no sense equivalent, requiring the grid operators to maintain at an instant state of readiness conventional power plant to retain frequency control across the grid (For technical reasons, nuclear power is seldom used for frequency control)
Finally we note that at the county level Northamptonshire has already exceeded the targets laid down for renewables generation to 2020, which implies that any investment in wind energy would be better targeted to areas and sites where the yield would be higher and more consistent.
