Kayla Ente MBE, CEO of Brighton and Hove Energy Services Co-operative

Onshore wind energy is set to play a huge part in the UK’s future. With the Government pledging to double onshore wind capacity by 2030, we may soon become familiar with the sight of towering turbines across the country.

But what are the pros and cons, potentials and pitfalls, of this renewable energy technology? This urgent question was explored – with specific reference to the South Coast landscape – in a workshop hosted jointly by the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) and the Sussex Energy Group (SEG) on Wednesday 9 October.

The afternoon was split into two parts. The first half entailed insightful presentations from our three invited speakers. Kayla Ente MBE, CEO of Brighton and Hove Energy Services Co-operative (BHESCO), focused on the barriers and opportunities of onshore wind energy, drawing on BHESCO’s experience working with community partners in Sussex.

Dr Charles R Gamble, Managing Director of Community Power Solutions, then shared insights and tips from his organisation’s successful construction of one of the UK’s largest wind turbines in the estate of Lawrence Weston in Bristol.

Finally, Professor Fiona Mathews of the School of Life Sciences at Sussex, highlighted the ecological cost of wind turbines, with findings from her considerable research experience concerning the often fatal interaction of bats and turbines.

After a break, attendees divided up into small breakout groups in the ‘world café’ format,  meaning each group moved between tables to discuss various set issues. The three themes for discussion were: the key issues presented by onshore wind energy for the South Coast; how to establish a public discourse around wind energy; and the creation of a research agenda.

Attendees included members of local organisations including BHESCO and WeWantWind, SSRP and SEG researchers, and academics from further afield.

The barriers and opportunities of onshore wind energy

As Professor Joseph Alcamo (SSRP director) and Dr Matthew Lockwood (SEG co-director) pointed out in their introduction to the workshop, onshore wind can be a controversial topic. A UK poll last year found that most people supported onshore wind energy, but also that a majority were against turbines being built in their local area. This paradox contextualised the presentations that followed.

BHESCO was formed in 2013 with the objective of ‘bringing affordable low-carbon energy to [the] community’. It offers a ‘pay as you save’ finance deal to help customers who want to invest in renewable energy projects.

As its CEO Kayla Ente said in her presentation, onshore wind is the cheapest form of electricity, so there is potential for organisations such as BHESCO to make arrangements with energy suppliers to deliver lower household costs for heat.

Fuel poverty is rife in the UK, Kayla added, with around 35,000 people dying each year as a direct result of not being able to heat their homes. To combat this dire situation, BHESCO carries out home installations to keep people warm in the winter.

The main focus of Kayla’s presentation, though, was a project BHESCO embarked on with the Rathfinny Wine Estate in Sussex, which wanted to power its operations entirely with renewable energy. This experience proved a valuable case study into some of the obstacles to the successful implementation of onshore turbines.

To achieve this aim, BHESCO sought to build a turbine in the famous and picturesque Cuckmere Valley, part of the South Downs National Park. Kayla and colleagues carried out ecological surveys and financial estimations, calculating the heat demand increase involved in the shift from oil to wind.

Issues arose when they engaged with the local community, some of whose families have lived in the area for hundreds of years. BHESCO, Kayla added, have been consulting with communities for over 10 years.

While the organisation had support from community leaders for the Rathfinny project, there were a handful of local people who strongly objected to the plans, leading to the abandonment of the project, although Kayla said she hadn’t given up on it.

The only way to get these projects off the ground, Kayla concluded, is to talk to people, find people who will champion your cause, and garner support. There are also considerations around supply chains for the materials required to build the turbines, and the environmental impacts of these developments (which Fiona elaborated on later).

Empowering communities with wind energy

Next, Dr Charles R Gamble, who has worked in renewable energy for 40 years, introduced his organisation Community Power Solutions, which develops wind energy projects for the economic benefit of local communities.

The wind turbine the group constructed in Lawrence Weston, Bristol – one of the most deprived places in the UK – is owned entirely by the community. ‘Every community deserves to have the benefits of something like that,’ said Charles, who added: ‘Making onshore wind happen is wonderful – it transforms things. But it’s also complex, risky, and costly.’

To this end, he provided an eight-point guide of things you need when embarking on community-led wind energy projects:

1)    A supportive community. Community ownership of wind turbines is an extreme rarity, Charles said, but it can happen with the support of local councilors and populations.

2)    Development of the necessary finance. Because of financial matters, among other considerations, the progress of such projects can be slow and intermittent.

3)    Wind! This is, of course, non-negotiable. Planning for maximum wind is essential.

4)    Land agreements. When dealing with landowner expectations, a lot of negotiation is required.

5)    Technical, ecological, and planning expertise. You need boots on the ground to carry out planning applications and ecological surveys – this is ‘the guts of the work’.

6)    Grid connection. You need to work with the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) to understand whether there is capacity for an energy project.

7)    Power purchase agreement. The financial model of the project must be stress-tested and legal advice is imperative.

8)    Turbine materials and civil contracts. You need to know your suppliers and where your materials are coming from. There are only four or five onshore turbine manufacturers in Europe, Charles said.

Reflecting on the Lawrence Weston success, Charles concluded with the rousing line: ‘One turbine can transform the health of a community – so let’s build 1000!’

The ecological cost of onshore wind

Lastly, Professor Fiona Mathews presented research on the impacts of wind turbines on animals species, particularly bats. It would be a mistake, she argued, to pretend there isn’t an issue around the ecological disturbances and fatalities caused by this infrastructure.

Fiona said she had worked in hundreds of wind turbine sites and the risk to wildlife was ‘very real’. She added that the species affected by turbines tend to have low population densities, long life spans, and low reproductive capacity. In other words, these species are easy to knock toward extinction if you are not careful.

Bats encounter a lot of wind turbine disturbance because they travel large distances and therefore come into contact with many turbines, Fiona added. While it can be hard to pinpoint the exact number of casualties because bats are small and their corpses are often eaten or removed from the scene, in Britain we are killing 0.5-2 bats per turbine a month during the active season.

It appears that bats may be attracted to wind turbine sites, Fiona said, as some bat species tend to cluster around turbines. Habitat loss also occurs in association with the construction of a windfarm, and bat and bird species are regularly displaced by turbines.

Potential solutions to this problem include shutting down turbines during periods of peak risk, reducing ‘cut-in speed’ – the point at which the blades of a turbine start turning – and making use of acoustic sound repellents to prevent species gravitating to turbines.

Fiona concluded by reiterating that ‘the more blade you put in the environment, the bigger the risk to species’, and posing questions as to whether enough is currently being done to reduce these ecological impacts, and what might be done in the future.

Key questions to consider

Kayla, Fiona and Professor Tim Foxon of SEG and the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex facilitated the breakout groups after the break, from which diverse and stimulating  discussions arose. Among the conclusions drawn was the potential of closer synergy between BHESCO and Sussex. While the former often recruits graduates from the latter, it was agreed that there is more scope for Sussex students and researchers to support BHESCO’s work in the community.

Key questions that were discussed – and will continue to be considered as the SSRP and SEG collaboration progresses – included:

• At what locations would it be acceptable and unacceptable to site large wind turbines?
• Should wind energy production be given priority over agricultural areas, residential areas, nature-protected areas, and industrial zones?
• How much power should local authorities have over wind energy infrastructure planning? What is the role of community in these projects?
• How do attitudes towards wind generators differ among different groups in society? What are the views of farmers, city residents, the private sector, the public sector?
• What are some of the key issues involved with development of onshore wind energy on the South Coast? Who benefits and who suffers from this development?
• What potential impacts should be assessed before deciding on the construction of large wind turbines?

SSRP and SEG would like to thank everyone who contributed and attended the workshop, and we look forward to further collaboration on this vital topic, which will only grow in importance as the UK strives towards its Net Zero target by 2050.