Chill wind as Government ends subsidies early

POTENTIAL onshore wind farms have suffered a surprise setback with the Government announcing an early end to its subsidies, putting projects worth more than £6.4bn in jeopardy.

Energy Secretary Amber Rudd MP recently announced that new onshore wind farms will be excluded from an existing funding scheme from April 1 2016, which is a year earlier than expected.

All projects which already had planning permission and other similar conditions could still get built under a proposed “grace period”.

According to the latest data from Cheshire-based  Barbour ABI, a chosen provider of construction data for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Government, there are 338 proposed wind farms that are yet to receive planning permission, putting them at risk of incompletion.

Lead economist at Barbour ABI Michael Dall said: “There are 5,000 active wind turbines already in use across the UK, producing 5% of the total amount of national electricity.

“The Government has a target of 30% of UK electricity coming from renewables by 2020, and must believe that other areas of renewable energy should be prioritised over onshore wind projects to receive future subsidies and investment before the 2020 target year.”