Union warns turbines ‘won’t keep lights on’

THE relentless march of wind farms across the countryside has left Britain at risk of blackouts, one of the country’s biggest trade unions has warned.

The GMB yesterday revealed that one in eight days has been a ‘low wind day’ over the past year. That means wind turbines in the UK produced only 10 per cent or less of their capacity.

Scotland produces about a third of the UK’s renewable power and is home to nearly 70 per cent of onshore wind schemes.

The Scottish Government has shunned nuclear power or other forms of energy production and new figures by analysts at WeatherEnergy show that wind turbines generated enough electricity to supply, on average, 76 per cent of Scottish households in May. But that figure plummets when there is no wind.

Scotland receives power from south of the Border on around one in every five days, compared to one in six in previous years.

Speaking at the GMB congress in Bournemouth yesterday, the union’s national secretary Justin Bowden said: ‘Over the last 12 months there were 46 days when wind was supplying 10 per cent or less of the installed and connected wind capacity to the grid and on November 4, National Grid had to invoke special measures to keep the lights on.

‘Everyone gets that, over time, sensibly sourced and UK-produced renewable energy sources make sense, but in the real world of the here and now, we have to keep the lights turned on, homes heated and the economy functioning.

‘On the days when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, we need a base load electricity capacity we can rely on.’

The GMB’s intervention comes after the union called on MSPs to be ‘pragmatic’ about new nuclear and fracking sources.

Scottish Tory energy spokesman Alexander Burnett said: ‘There is a place for wind energy but they won’t keep the lights on alone. That’s why the SNP needs to drop its obsession with intermittent wind farms and explore more robust options.’

But the SNP said figures by Weather Energy show that wind turbines generated enough electricity to supply 100 per cent of homes on ten days in May.

MSP Joan McAlpine said: ‘These figures are evidence of how successful the SNP approach to promoting green energy has been – and expose the short-sightedness of the Tories’ campaign against renewables.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘In 2015, provisional figures show that the equivalent of 57.7 per cent of Scotland’s electricity demand was met from renewable sources.’