Communities
Small is beautiful
SRL believe that small is beautiful and that small clusters of distributed generation of renewable energy (onshore wind farms are the most cost-effective at present) will bring benefits to local communities that didn't exist previously.
Financial benefits to Communities
For each MW of installed, renewable energy, capacity SRL will be cutting the cake to ensure that community funds receive £2,000 per annum with no strings attached about how the money is used. For example, a 3 x 3MW onshore wind turbine development would generate £18,000 per annum for distribution to local community funds. In Suffolk, for example, the Broads Restoration Fund has already been earmarked as a key contender to receive funds from the proposed wind turbine developments in the Waveney District.
It all adds up
In consultation with the local Parish Council and other local stakeholders SRL will nominate the worthy recipient or recipients of this annual sum. To continue the example above, the group of 4 Projects in the Waveney area of Suffolk will generate a total of £72,000 per annum for allocation to the community over a continuous period of 25 years.
Consulting the Community first
SRL consult communities as widely as they can within the resources of a small renewable energy organisation. The first port of call when starting to develop a local onshore wind project is the Parish Council or Community Council. Maps of proposals are provided and local people's views are sought even before the Planners are informed so that there is ample opportunity for local people to express their views.
Economic development and employment
In economic development terms, the construction phases of the proposed Wind Turbine sites are very likely to create a flow of business for the local economy, and there are likely to be further opportunities for employment in the maintenance field, once the Turbines are fully operational. Approximately 400,000 people are currently employed in the wind-energy sector worldwide and the Global Wind Energy Council expect Global Employment to rise to 1 million by the end of 2010. Renewables East, based at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich, estimate that 20,000 new jobs could be created in the Renewable Energy Industry by 2020, in the Eastern Region of the UK.
Protecting security of supply
SRL are also supportive of the idea of electrical generation being home-grown and community focused to protect our security of supply. Only 2 of the 6 major UK utility companies are still in British hands (E-On and N|-power are both German, EDF is French and Scottish Power is Spanish). Furthermore, our new generation of 10-11 nuclear power stations are likely to be built by French and German companies, so we need to be careful about ensuring we have enough power generation built on British soil to hang on to some of the family silver for the future. More distributed generation amongst communities, such as the clusters of wind turbines envisaged by SRL, would also help to reduce expensive transmission losses incurred by moving electricity long distances around the National Grid. This additional cost is currently met by the UK customer.
Minority voices are heard
SRL know that not everybody is in favour of onshore wind turbines. We live in a democracy which ensures that minority voices are always heard, and when it comes to decision time the majority vote carries the day. SRL support this ethos and are sensitive to the fact that there are always tensions between consistency and change, local and national needs, myth and reality, and adjectives and numbers. SRL does its best to engage with supporters and objectors alike. What is clear is that our energy future is now both a local and national issue. Decision-makers now have to think on 2 levels.
The key issues confronting Communities
In whatever part of the UK we live, we now need to decide whether or not we wish to do something about 4 major problems with which we are all now faced:
- The impending Energy Crunch (by 2015 we are very likely to be short of electricity for up to 4.55 million UK homes as Coal-powered and Nuclear-powered stations progressively shut down)
- The need to replace depleting fossil fuels (our own and those imported) with other, renewable forms of electrical generation.
- The need to restore our security of electrical supply by building our own home grown installations on British soil.
- The need to combine all these measures with energy saving measures and lifestyle changes which will mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
Since coal combustion is 80% of the climate change problem, SRL believe that it makes sense to replace coal combustion with renewable energy to provide our electricity. Wind power certainly won't be the sole answer to the problem. There will be a basket of energies chosen, including some fossil fuel powered installations, to give us a robust and reliable energy future. However, somewhere in the basket there will have to be a significant amount of onshore wind power, at least 14,000 Megawatts. In January 2009 Andrew Garrad reported that "it had been gobsmacking to see the new wind energy schemes being developed on shore in China. One location he visited was putting in place up to 5,000 Megawatts of new capacity - equal to the wind generation capacity of France and the UK combined." SRL believe that we could just learn something from the Chinese in 2009, about getting a move on.
"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."
Lao Tzu (604-531 B.C.)Chinese Artist and Taoist Philosopher).
