Other news round-ups: Winter 2005/6 | Summer 2006 | Spring 2008
No Cefn Croes turbines have been turning in August, and they were also idle in late-June/early-July - just a year after their fanfare opening by Assembly Minister Andrew Davies. Other wind-farms nearby were working, so wind wasn't the problem. A site inspection revealed that the problem is faulty blades; you can read more here: http://www.socme.org/august06downloads/ccmonitors.jpg
Cefn Croes has become a carbon emitter - a diesel generator is hard at work at the substation; the new road network is generating more pollution and (environmentally-friendly?) income for the Forestry Commission as a motor sports venue; and the dead peat continues to exhale its stored carbon as it dries out.
Operators Falck weren't telling anyone why the turbines had stopped, so we're entitled to speculate, aren't we, whether there's been a mechanical failure, a power line failure, or grid overload?
Peat, Carbon Dioxide Payback and Windfarms - an important paper by Dr. Mike Hall - has recently been published by the Renewable Energy Foundation. It is an independent environmental carbon audit of the kind which should have been commissioned by the National Assembly and/or DTI, both of which preferred to rely on "audits" from (of all people!) the British Wind Energy Assocation. Mike Hall's paper vindicates our plea for a moratorium on wind developments in the Welsh uplands, and is illustrated with examples of peat damage at Cefn Croes, at Derrybrien in Ireland, and in Scotland.
If you use the Freedom of Information Act to get government information, you'll need to be patient. We've waited over a year to be told what advice civil servants gave to (then) Energy Minister, Brian Wilson, before he decided to give the go-ahead for Cefn Croes. And they have no idea how big the backlog is... There's more spin in "Freedom of Information" than there is at Cefn Croes!
The same Brian Wilson is now putting his inside knowledge to lucrative use, as chairman of Irish wind company Airtricity, which has been awarded the sole contract for anemometer masts in Forestry Commission estates - which the Assembly plans to use for a massive windpower expansion. We understand that the contract was acquired outwith normal FC tendering procedures.
This has finally been established as a charity, with five trustees: Roger Jones
(who works for Cambrian Wind Energy in Cardiff), John Wall of Ponterwyd, Anne
Bunton of Dyffryn Castell, and Philip Lloyd and Edryd Jenkins of Pontarfynach.
The £58,500 handout the Trust receives each year is to be used to benefit
the communities of Blaenrheidol and Pontarfynach, who certainly aren't benefitting
from any of the jobs promised by developers, nor getting their hands on any
cheap electricity, nor on any of the rest of the £12 million which operators
Falck are receiving annually from Cefn Croes. More at http://ponterwyd.pumlumon.org.uk/modules/content_02/index.php?id=9
The Forestry Commission has rejected Falck 's application to develop further wind power stations on its estate, to the evident distress of its German director Willie Heller as he gave evidence to the Wales Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry into Energy. Perhaps someone at the top has learned lessons from the Cefn Croes disaster.
During the 7 months March to September 2005, the average output was 24% (of the installed capacity of 58.5 megawatts) or 14 megawatts. Monthly outputs ranged from a high of 30% in May to a low of 14% in August. The full figures are given below, and will be updated as data become available.
If we make the generous assumption that the subsequent five months from October 2005 to February 2006 all manage to match May's high, the annual average output is likely to be 25-30% or 15-17 megawatts. This for a power station that evaded local planning procedures on the grounds that it was bigger than 50 megawatts!
If this is the best that can be achieved by an "exemplar" project in an optimal site (high, windy plateau) using state-of-the-art turbines, then Cefn Croes developers and the wind-farm industry have been misleading policymakers in Westminster and Cardiff Bay, planning authorities, and the public.
| Output (MWh) |
Load factor (output as % of installed capacity) |
Average output (MW) |
|
| 2005 | |||
| March | 12374 | 28% | 16 |
| April | 12650 | 30% | 18 |
| May | 14592 | 33% | 19 |
| June | 9143 | 22% | 13 |
| July | 7221 | 17% | 10 |
| August | 6110 | 14% | 8 |
| September | 10649 | 25% | 15 |
| Overall Mar-Sep 2005 | 72739 | 24% | 14 |
On an income (sales, to distributors, of electricity and Renewable Obligation Certificates) of roughly £90 per MWh, operators Falck took in around £6.5 million in the first 7 months of full operation. Wind power, with its huge hidden subsidies, is today's fastest way for big business to make money.
* Click here to see full data (from Ofgem, the electricity regulator) for all UK wind farms from September 2004 to September 2005. Note that Cefn Croes data is split into two rows, described as Cefn Croes (row 126 = 30 turbines = 45MW installed capacity) and New Werfa (row 140 = 9 turbines = 13.5MW); the table above adds these two rows.
On the Pembrokeshire/Carmarthenshire border, of course! An NFFO contract was awarded for a windfarm there, but it has not been built, so the contract was diverted to top up the 45MW Cefn Croes contract so that it exceeded the magic 50MW mark which would enable it to by-pass the normal planning procedures, and be determined by the DTI. Flexible NFFO contracts (move/merge/split at will till the sums are right) were enabled by a statutory instrument dreamt up by none other than our old friend Brian Wilson.
Click here for the latest from FCW
DEFRA has said that Assembly Ministers Carwyn Jones (Environment & Planning) and Andrew Davies (Economic development) are responsible for using public land for wind developments, rather than the Forestry Commissioners. Despite that, a formal complaint has been made against Welsh Forestry Commissioner Gareth Wardell, for a conflict of interests: he was an adviser to ECO2 - an energy company seeking to develop wind-farms in South Wales - at the same time as being privy to confidential information regarding FCW policy and its close relationship with TAN8 Strategic "Search" Areas.
FCW has completed analysis of pre-qualification questionnaires, to weed out weaker wind developers for its SSA sites. "Invitations to tender" (selling Wales to the highest bidder) have now gone out to the preferred candidates, and WAG/FC hope to have Option Agreements signed by October 2006.
The unseemly rush to flog off our public forests and uplands is driven by the urgent need to meet arbitrary political targets, and to ensure that the handover of public land to large single developers has progressed beyond the point of no return well before the 2007 Assembly Elections, and any post-election policy re-think.
The Cefn Croes Action Group was represented at the Forestry Commission's "Woodlands for Wales" conference, held on January 12th 2006 in The Pavilion, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, "……to consider progress on the 'National Assembly for Wales Strategy for Trees and Woodlands'". There were no direct references to sales of FCW land to wind turbine developers, but plenty to "the over-arching imperative of fulfilling the National Assembly's objectives". Click here for a report.
A report commissioned by the DTI in 2003 from ADAS Consulting confirms that wind power stations in remote rural areas confer very little economic benefit, thus undermining one of the main reasons proffered by developers as to why they should be accepted.
The EMC now concedes that Cefn Croes is an environmental disaster. Attention focuses on the peat damage - most severe around turbines 25-30, but 31-35, 19-21 and 36-39 are also affected. The Scottish Wind Assessment Project, which is reporting to the Scottish Parliament on the notorious Derrybrien peatslide in Co. Galway, Ireland, also features shocking images of the peat damage on Cefn Croes.
The Cefn Croes Action Group has responded to:
Powys County Council's Draft Interim Control Guidance on Wind Developments,
issued in the wake of WAG's TAN8 - click
to read representation;
the Welsh Affairs Select Committee consultation on Energy in Wales; the Regulatory
Reform Order (Forestry) - click
to read representation;
and the Commons Environmental Audit Committee paper "Keeping the Lights
on" - click
to read representation.
(Ceredigion has not yet issued TAN8 guidance).
The Action Group has also met with Gareth Wardell (a commissioner with the Forestry Commission for Wales) and Ian Forshaw, FCW's new Director. The meeting (click for Minutes) was not reassuring, as Mr. Forshaw regards it as part of his remit to help implement the Assembly's plans for a massive expansion of onshore wind in the TAN 8 Strategic Search Areas - 53% of which are FCW land.
Jon Westlake, the FCW officer charged with implementing TAN 8, set out the timetable at a recent British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) fringe meeting. It is:
See http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-6hyjdu for further info.
This new charity was formed in April 2005 to work for a better future for the
Cambrian Mountains and their communities, so long neglected, undervalued, and
abused - and yet so nearly a National Park. The Society's medium term goal is
a Cambrian Mountains Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Read more on the Cambrian
Mountains Society website.
Henceforth, summary updates will be posted quarterly. The Cefn Croes saga is not yet complete.
Other news round-ups: Winter 2005/6 | Summer 2006 | Spring 2008
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