The UK wind industry has hit 4 GW of installed capacity, equivalent, says the Br ...

The UK wind industry has hit 4 GW of installed capacity, equivalent, says the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), to powering the equivalent of Scotland’s household needs, or 2.3mn homes. The milestone was broken by the final commissioning of three wind farms - the EDF Energy Renewables 38 MW Longpark, Scottish Power Renewables 30 MW Dun Law extension and the first phase of Dong Energy’s 173 MW Gunfleet Sands offshore wind farm. There are over 12 GW of wind schemes either operational, being built or already with planning permission says the BWEA, adding that, when this pipeline of projects is built in 2012, wind energy will have overtaken nuclear in installed capacity. The announcement was made at the first day of the BWEA’s annual conference, held in Liverpool in October. However, figures were also released that day that local council approvals of wind farm applications have fallen to a new low of just 25%, from 63% in 2007. The BWEA State of the Industry Report shows that, despite the strong growth in the number of wind farms being built, there is now an alarming drop in the number of new applications being approved locally. Speaking at the conference, former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, said: ‘It is absolutely scandalous that three quarters of all planning applications for onshore wind turbines are turned down. We cannot let the vocal minority stop our move to a low carbon economy and stop us meeting our global emissions targets.’ Finally, the BWEA welcomed the signing of a contract between DECC, the Crown Estate, NATS En Route and the wind industry’s Aviation Investment Fund Company to progress the development of a solution to wind farm radar problems. The Raytheon solution is a hardware and software fix to the detection of wind turbines on radar systems, which will eliminate wind turbine interference of en-route radar displays. It is estimated that currently 6 GW of wind energy capacity is being held back due to objections from civil and MoD aviation authorities.