England still a ‘godforsaken’ place to build onshore wind: ScottishPower boss

“If I speak from the part of our company that is a wind farm developer I am not proposing, or planning or looking at developing any onshore wind farms in England,” he told the UK government’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee today (Wednesday).

“It’s godforsaken,” said Anderson, CEO of the Iberdrola subsidiary which through its ScottishPower Renewables arm is one of the biggest players in UK green power.

“The number of sites available aren’t that great, the wind yields aren’t that brilliant, but the process is cumbersome, slow, difficult and fraught with uncertainty.”

Power over the approval of projects still lies with local councils, but they must now consider the views of the “whole community, rather than a small minority,” when considering a planning application.

Barney Wharton, director of future electricity systems at RenewableUK, agreed that the “changes aren’t sufficient.”

“If you want to build onshore wind in England, we need to see some fundamental changes to, for example, the footnotes in the national planning policy framework.”

“The vast majority of onshore wind in England will be smaller projects, smaller sites, but if I want to put a small turbine on the roof of my house I am subject essentially to the same planning requirements that someone building a 100MW wind farm would be subject to. That’s wild.”

Anderson also talked about the need to speed up permitting processes to bring more renewables online.

“It takes me two to three years to build a big transmission line,” he said. “Why is it taking seven years to go through planning?

“It takes me seven years to get an offshore wind farm through the planning process. It only takes me two years to build it. If I can build it in two years I think it should get through the planning system in two years.”