James Glennie: Modern wind turbines cost-competitive and quiet

COMMENT

Chris de Freitas, in a Perspectives article, extolled the virtues of coal and denigrated the wind industry. Regrettably, his conclusions were based on selected, old or incorrect data.

He wrote that the price of electricity from wind-turbine generators in Britain was £50/MWh, and used this to justify the claim that wind power was uneconomic. The reality is that in Britain renewably generated electricity receives a government-mandated subsidy, which is about £50/MWh.

The cost of generation is significantly less than this subsidy.

New Zealand has some of the best wind resources on earth; the wind blows more strongly and consistently than in almost any other part of the inhabited world.

Te Apiti, a 90MW wind farm near the Manawatu Gorge that has received strong local support, will be commissioned later this year. It will then generate power, for more than 90 per cent of the time, that will be cost-competitive with coal-fired stations (and other forms of generation).

Professor de Freitas repeats the rather tired argument about intermittency. But he neglects to mention the various studies from around the world that show that the cost of providing additional back-up to address the intermittency issue is not significant until the penetration of wind-turbine generators reaches 15 to 30 per cent of the total installed generation capacity.

In New Zealand, this would be equivalent to 1200 to 2400MW of wind-turbine generators.

When you consider there is at present an installed base of 35.9MW, it should be clear we are many years away from the lower end of this intermittency limit. In addition, with 60 per cent of our power coming from hydro stations, we have large amounts of spinning reserve in part-loaded hydro capacity.

On the subject of birds and wind turbines, Professor de Freitas said the level of bird kills was "astronomical", and that "44,000 birds have been killed over the past two decades by these towering machines".

Maybe. But, according to the Audubon Society, over the same 20 years as many as 20 billion birds were killed in the US by domestic and feral cats. Also, 60 to 90 million birds die annually in the US from collision with vehicles, up to 170 million from collisions with power cables, and several million from collisions with windows.

Professor de Freitas also ignored the fact that the wind farms to which he referred were mostly built as prototypes in the 1970s. Modern turbines are built only after enormous consideration has been given to bird movements. They are also significantly larger (hence fewer are needed for the same power output), spaced much further apart and have blades that revolve more slowly.

It is interesting that Professor Freitas implied that coal was the answer to reduced avian mortality when the evidence increasingly suggests that uncontrolled release of anthropogenic C02 is fundamentally changing our climate and threatening the animals that live in it.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds identified climate change as one of the biggest threats to Britain's bird population. And a well-authored article in the journal Nature stated that a million species of animals could be rendered extinct by 2050 because of climate change.

Modern production wind turbines are not "excessively noisy", or even vaguely so, and it is ridiculous to claim they are. If you stand under one in a light breeze, you will hear only the swishing of the blades. In a strong wind, you will hear only the wind.

Wind energy can no longer be confined to a "niche role", as Professor de Freitas advocates. This dynamic new industry has achieved global growth rates of more than 25 to 30 per cent for the past five years and more.

The total global installed capacity of wind-turbine generators is now 40,000MW, representing more than $100 billion of capital investment. Rapid growth continues with broad public support, and the industry expects the global installed capacity to almost quadruple to 150,000MW by 2012.

Germany, with a land area only 50 per cent greater than that of New Zealand and a population 20 times higher, has 14,000MW of wind energy installed. Denmark, with 16 per cent of our area and a population 35 per cent higher, has 3100 MW of wind-turbine generators installed and generates 15 per cent of its electricity needs from the wind.

Here, we expect 130MW of new wind capacity to be commissioned this year which represents annual growth of more than 350 per cent. Hundreds of megawatts of other developments are being evaluated for installation next year and beyond.

There are many options available, and we will only find the optimal one if we work together to find the outcome that maximises the benefits for industry, the environment and future generations. The wind industry will continue to play a central role in the ongoing energy debate.

* James Glennie is the chief executive of the Wind Energy Association. Previously, he worked for the British Wind Energy Association. He is responding to Chris de Freitas' view that overseas experience shows wind farms are not the answer to our energy woes.