Home Page  Energy Wind Energy
|
Wind Energy |
|
|
|
Written by Richard Douthwaite
|
|
Tuesday, 30 November 2004 |
Ireland has the best renewable energy resources of any EU state
Should Irish families invest in wind energy?
High and rising oil prices are making community wind energy projects much more
attractive but, unfortunately, the Irish government makes them difficult to
carry out.
When OPEC tripled world oil prices in 1979, the Lauritsen family who live
in a rural area just outside Aarhus in Denmark, wondered what they should do.
"As we used oil to heat our house, we looked for ways in which we could
save money and, maybe, help the nation too" Per Lauritsen says. "96%
of Denmark's electricity was being generated from oil at the time."
There were not too many options to consider. There was no firewood they could
cut on their property and Lauritsen, who is an architect, had designed his family's
house to be energy efficient and to make good use of the sun. So the wind, which
blows almost unchecked off the North Sea across the low-lying Jutland peninsula,
seemed to be the best possibility, particularly as a long series of experiments
in the area had shown wind power's feasibility. In 1891, for example, the 'Danish
Edison', a folk high school teacher in South Jutland called Poul la Cour, had
become the first person in the world to use wind electricity for lighting and
heating, although so unreliable and costly were the carbon filament light bulbs
available at the time that he had had invent the hydrogen economy. He electrolysed
water into hydrogen and oxygen and piped the former to gaslights in his school
in Askov village and to houses in the village itself.
The Lauritsens suggested to their neighbours, the Bangkildes, who are teachers,
and the Sorensens, who are farmers, that the three families should jointly erect
a turbine to meet their energy needs at the point where their properties met.
Any surplus electricity would be sold to the grid. "We had good relations
with our neighbours and shared a snow-plough with them" Inger-Lise Lauritsen
says. A lot of money was involved - about Û60,000 per family in today's
terms - and although both the other families needed loans secured on their properties
to raise this, they said they would go ahead.
The local electricity company - Denmark has 110 regional power distributors
- was much less enthusiastic. In fact, it said quite categorically that there
was no question of its accepting the tiny amount of power from the families'
55kW machine. It took political lobbying, a debate in the Folketting (parliament)
and the direct intervention of the Minister for Energy before the grid connection
was made.
But at what price, and on what basis was the power company to purchase the
families' electricity? "The agreement took two years of negotiations. Under
it, we put all the power we produced into the grid and were paid 85% of the
household price for it. We then bought back all the electricity we needed for
our houses at the full price" Per Lauritsen says.
This agreement was so attractive that Per was almost overwhelmed by people
telephoning to ask him to help them set up their own turbines. A total of 377
turbines were installed in 1979 and 1980 and windpower co-ops were set up all
over the country, drawing on a rural co-operative tradition which is very similar
to that in Ireland.
Since then,100,000 Danish families have joined together to buy wind turbines.
As a result, wind farms, 80% of which are community owned, currently supply
22% of Denmark's energy needs. At present, a co-operative with 8,550 members,
mostly residents of Copenhagen, is building a massive Û48 million offshore
windfarm at Middelgrunden. Manufacturing wind turbines to meet home and export
demand has created thousands of jobs and the Danish wind energy industry leads
the world.
So, now that oil prices have soared again, is there any chance that Irish
families could follow their Danish counterparts' example and set up co-ops to
erect wind turbines here? I've been part of a team investigating this possibility
for the past two years and the answer is, unfortunately, "No, not until
the Irish government gets its act together and does what the Danish government
did all those years ago - order the electricity distribution companies to give
community wind groups a decent, guaranteed price for their power."
The team that came to this conclusion called itself the Renewable Energy Partnership.
It consisted of Bri Nua, a community group from Inishowen in Donegal whose members
are keen to invest in a windfarm in their area, the Mayo Community Wind Energy
Group, which I helped to set up, and the Western Development Commission based
in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Mayo. This is the government agency charged with promoting
the development of seven western counties. Funded largely by Sustainable Energy
Ireland, we hired and briefed a firm of consultants and, in June this year,
we published an attractive book, To Catch the Wind: The Potential for Community
Ownership of Wind Farms in Ireland, based on the consultants' report. The book
is designed to be a practical guide to any community group considering getting
involved in wind energy and copies are free from the WDC. Just telephone (094)
986 1441.
The book's strong recommendation is that, until government policies change
radically, no community group should waste its money and energies on trying
to erect a wind turbine to connect to the grid. This conclusion was based in
part on the bad experiences of members of a Kilkenny-based co-operative, Meitheal
na Gaoithe. MnaG was set up to promote the development of wind and other renewable
energies in ways that would allow farmers, communities and other groups to retain
the financial and social benefits of windfarms in their areas.
Until the end of last year, MnaG held numerous workshops involving international
experts around the country. It discontinued these, however, even though they
were well-attended, because of the problems that people attempting to set up
windfarms were experiencing. Some well-researched projects could not get planning
approval and those that cleared that hurdle often found that they could not
get any electricity distributor to give them a contract to buy their power.
Once that had been achieved, problems could arise with getting connected to
the national grid. MnaG estimated that approximately Û4 million had been
lost by its members in trying to overcome all the barriers and that at least
a quarter of this had been wasted on failed planning applications.
Accordingly, the REP recommended to government earlier this year that:
- All counties should be zoned so that people could know in advance where
windfarms would be permitted. Denmark has done this for years.
- A feed-in law should be introduced requiring electricity distributors to
purchase supplies from renewable sources at a generous fixed price. Every
EU country apart from Ireland has such laws.
- The national grid should be required to provide a connection free of cost
to all renewable energy projects below a certain size and with a high level
of community involvement.
- Funding should be provided for the establishment of a Renewable Energy Advisory
Group which would help and advise community groups wishing to develop renewable
energy projects. The REAG would not be a state agency, however, but would
be owned and controlled by the groups it helped.
Until all four of these recommendations were adopted, we were forced to conclude,
"communities are likely to face significant difficulties when developing
100 per cent community-owned wind energy projects. Consequently, unless conditions
are extremely favourable, communities should refrain from investing in their
own wind energy projects as the level of risk and uncertainty is currently too
high." The only way that communities could invest in wind energy at present
was by "participating in commercial projects once such projects have secured
planning consent, a grid connection agreement and a contract for the sale of
electricity." And even then, they would need professional advice to avoid
getting their fingers burned.
If the government acts on our recommendations - and we are optimistic that
it will - we see thousands of families investing in wind energy here. And not
only the better-off ones. In Denmark, people from all social groups can invest
in the wind because those, like the Bangkildes and the Sorensens, who need to
borrow to raise, say, Û10,000, can do so from their local savings bank.
Everyone puts around the same amount into the co-op and has an account with
the savings bank whether they need to borrow or not. The cheque from the electricity
company goes straight to the bank and is divided up amongst the co-op members.
After ten years or less, all the loans are paid off and investors are receiving
enough income to pay their power bills with a bit more on top.
In our study, we checked to see whether Irish credit unions would be prepared
to follow the Danish savings banks and lend to members who wished to invest
in wind energy. We found that they were very keen to do so. A lot of money is
available. A fairly typical credit union in the West currently has over Û30
million available to lend to its 8,000 members but as those members only want
to borrow Û13 million of this, it has had to send Û17 million out
of the area for investment elsewhere.
Personally, I can't think of any better way of saving for one's old age than
by investing in wind energy. As the second article shows, oil and gas are becoming
scarce. Their prices are bound to rise considerably, pushing up the price of
electricity to several times its present level. In such a climate, anyone able
to sell power to the grid from a renewable source should do very well.
{mos_sb_discuss:3} |
|
|
| The local planet |
Fivealley
Birr
Co. Offaly
Ireland
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Tel. 057 9133119/ 9133985 / 9133962 Fax: 057 9133985 | | |
|
MA in Ecology & Religion |
|
Part-Time Ma Programme in Ecology and Religion
- Science & Religion with John Feehan
- Ecology & Economics with Richard Douthwaite
- The Ecological State of Our Planet and Country with Sean McDonagh
- Ecology and The Bible with Sean Freyne
Further information from: The MA Admissions Office, IMU Institute, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath. Tel. 046 9021525 (ext. 332)
Email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
|
