Introduction

When the blades start turning at Westmill Windfarm, the energy generated will produce enough ‘green' electricity to power more than 2,500 homes, whilst avoiding the release each year of 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Westmill Wind Farm Co-op was established to build the first onshore wind farm in the south-east of England and is 100% Community Owned.  Work on the five turbine site at Watchfield, South Oxfordshire, will start after contracts are signed.  Proof that renewables are popular and an investment was shown in the success of the Share Offer for Westmill Co-op, which closed in February 2006 with over £4 million submitted.

You can find out about the latest developments in 2007 by visiting the Westmill website http://www.westmill.coop/index.php  or ringing 01229 821028.

Read more to view an interview with Adam Twine, an Oxfordshire organic farmer and the pioneer behind the project.

Sections in this article

The social context for action

The history behind the current planning application

Making sense of the opposition

Environmental and social impacts

The local decision-making process

Where Next?..and 2007 update

The social context for action

Climate change is happening - the questions now are: who will be affected, how quickly, how severely and for how long? Christian Aid predict that half the world's population - mostly living in developing countries - will be at risk of drought or flood in the next 20 years. The UK government has recently engaged in a consultation exercise to inform their policy review for UK Energy generation into the next 10 and 20 years. These are some of the questions it raises for me:

• How should we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels?
• Should we start a new nuclear programme?
• Can renewables make a realistic contribution?
• How can we reduce energy demand?
• What is economically (and politically) acceptable?
• What should Oxfordshire be doing?

Windfarms, short-term blot or long-term enhancer?

The history behind the current planning application

About 10 years ago as part of general reappraisal about how I integrated my values into my work I started to look into the possibility of energy generation from the land I farmed.  I planted a few acres of willow for biomass production and also put up an anemometer to measure the wind speeds on land that was once a MOD airfield (1942-1975); the site of the Watchfield Free Festival in 1976 (and more recently, the 1995 Big Green Gathering) and now in conventional cereal production.

A year later the wind speed data showed that the old airfield had adequate, though not exciting, wind speeds.  I decided to pursue the possibility of wind farming and in 1994 submitted a planning application and Environmental Impact Assessment for 5 Carter 300kW wind turbines.

There was a certain amount of opposition, particularly from some individuals working at the nearby Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham.  Planning permission was eventually granted, but not until five years later!  Unfortunately, by then Carters had gone out of business and Carter wind turbines were no longer manufactured.

I had always intended that the project would have some form of ownership by the local community and had been talking to both Baywind Energy, a co-operative with 1300 members based at Barrow-in-Furness and also to the Wind Fund, an investment arm of Triodos Bank, an ethical bank based in Bristol.

In the end I decided to try and take the project forward as a joint venture with the Wind Fund.  I obtained a new planning permission for 5 Vestas 850kW wind turbines.  These had the same tower height as the Carters (50m) but twice as long blades - 26m compared to 12m - and would produce four times more electricity than the Carters - 8.8 GWh/year compared to the Carters 2.2 GWh/year.

In May last year the Wind Fund pulled out.  They felt the economics of the project were not quite robust enough.  Several corporate developers were interested in taking the project over but not with any element of community ownership. 

As it happened Baywind had recently started negotiations with National Wind Power (a subsidiary company of then National Power and now Innogy plc) about developing projects with some community ownership. National Wind Power were happy to develop the site with two out of five turbines available for local community ownership but felt that a Bonus 1.3 MW turbine would be more appropriate to my site.  The Bonus turbine has blades that are 5m longer than the Vestas (31m compared to 26m), is quieter than the Vestas, has a slower rotor speed and produces an extra 40% more electricity - 12.6GWh/year compared to 8.8 GWh/year.

12.6 GWh/year is enough electricity to meet the needs of around 3700 ‘average' homes (or around 9000 people).  3700 houses is equivalent to a small market town the size of Faringdon plus some surrounding villages.

I did not anticipate any problem since the only material difference was 5 metres on the blade length, plus 40% more electricity. I submitted my new planning application in September last year. I hadn't, however, allowed for the determined opposition of a handful of rather well resourced individuals who reckoned that if they could stop this application they could stop any wind turbines from going up.

Making sense of the opposition

From my limited experience, I believe that much of the opposition to wind turbines is emotional rather than rational (which is no less valuable) and concerns issues of landscape ownership, wind turbine symbolism and local / personal power dynamics - as opposed to power generation!

Equally, some of the support for wind turbines is also emotional and of course, underlying every position are the personal value systems that inform all our opinions and actions.

I personally feel that wind turbines do industrialise a landscape - but for me that is a small price to pay for pollution-free electricity from which I benefit.  It is clearly wrong to expect future generations or the Majority world to pick up the environmental cost of my lifestyle choices.

There are a number of what to me are "greyer" areas, some of which are:

Ownership - Corporate, private or local.

Scale of development - In Denmark most of the wind farms are small clusters of 2-6 turbines which means that the landscape accommodates the wind farm more easily - but you have to have more units. In the UK most wind farms are 10+ turbines.

Location - Hilltops, where turbines are most efficient, or off the hilltops where they will be less visible but generate less electricity, or offshore, where the winds speeds are greater and more constant.

Scale of generation - How to reconcile the relatively small generation output of wind turbines compared to conventional power stations.

The apparent over-supply of generation capacity currently in the UK.

There is one widespread misconception about wind turbines and public acceptance. Contrary to the general expectations about wind turbines in the landscape, all opinion surveys conducted around existing UK wind farms show that the vast majority of people - around 70% - have no problems seeing wind turbines in their local landscape (Around 15% think they are terrible and a similar percentage think they are wonderful!)

Environmental and social impacts

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has now been completed and is on deposit at Faringdon Library, Highworth Library, Watchfield Village Hall and in the planning offices in Abingdon.

The non-technical summary is on deposit in Coleshill and Watchfield Post Offices and Shrivenham Memorial Hall. It is also on the Internet at www.tvenergy.org

The EIA looked at all possible environmental and social impacts of the wind turbines.  It also considered the environmental impacts of generating 12.6 GWh from fossil fuels or nuclear power.

The main findings of the EIA were:

• All forms of electricity production have an environmental impact. Fossil fuel combustion contributes to Climate Change. Nuclear Fission produces radioactive waste. The environmental impacts of both these forms of power generation have long time frames and cover large areas. The potential impact of Climate Change is enormous. The environmental impacts of wind power generation are immediate, local and stop when the turbines are decommissioned.
• Visual. The Bonus turbines have 50m high towers and 31m long blades (81m tip height).  Therefore they are potentially visible for miles around.  The main visual impact will be within 3km. According to all public opinion surveys around existing wind farms - the majority of people (c. 70%) do not consider the visual impact of wind turbines to be a problem.
• Noise. There is one property that may hear the blade swish from the turbines during the daytime and night time depending on the wind speed, wind direction and other general background noise levels.  It is possible that anyone on the edge of Watchfield will occasionally hear the swish in the very early hours of the morning when there is no traffic on the A420.
• There is no impact on local ecology.
• No impact on archaeological or heritage sites.
• No impact on electromagnetic signals.
• No impact from shadow flicker or reflectivity.

The turbines have an energy payback period of less than 4 months - over a 25 year design life.

Watchfield Airfield is one of the few sites in Oxfordshire on which wind turbines could be sited. It has a decent wind speed, no national planning designations and is sufficiently far from houses.

There is strong local support for the project. Over 70% in favour of approval at local exhibitions and from a public opinion survey carried out by Oxford Brookes University.

There is strong local interest in community ownership.  50% of people surveyed were interested in investing in the new co-op.

The difference between the existing permission (Vestas turbines) and the current application (Bonus turbines) are:

i.       The Bonus produce 40% extra electricity.

ii.       The Bonus have blades which are 5m longer than the Vestas (and  therefore have a marginally greater visual impact).

iii.       The Bonus are quieter than the Vestas.

iv.       The Bonus have a slower rotor turning speed.

The only significant difference is the 40% extra output.

The local decision-making process

The planning issues are fairly straightforward and the chances are that the Bonus turbines will get approved when it goes to committee, however the opposition have employed planning, environmental and legal consultants who attack the detail and obscure the bigger picture. They have also put out misleading information (photomontages of wind turbines 3x their actual height!) creating a fair degree of local concern, and encouraged friends and relations from as far away as Suffolk and Lancashire to write in to the planning offices to urge rejection.

The National Trust, owner of the Coleshill Estate (which neighbours the site) have also objected to the application. I was surprised at their logic since there is an existing planning permission for the 5 Vestas turbines, which are slightly noisier and significantly less productive than the Bonus wind turbines. I was also disappointed that an organisation that purports to care about Climate Change still gets hung up on the visual impact argument - particularly as they have done so little themselves and have nothing better to offer.

Oxfordshire Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, local Green campaigners and numerous neighbours and local people have written to support the application.

In the general scale of things 12.6 GWh of clean electricity a year won't have a very significant impact on UK CO₂ emissions. But locally it's a start and a clear expression of the changes in power generation and power consumption that we all need to face up to or it will be if the Vale Councillors vote Yes on 31^st March.

Where Next?

To see more details of the scheme visit the Thames Valley Energy website.

Visit the Westmill Wind farm co-operative site at http://www.westmill.coop/index.php

For more information about the UK's first cooperative wind farm visit the Baywind website.

2007 Update:

We are really pleased to announce that we are back in negotiations with Siemens Wind Energy to procure five 1.3MW machines for the Westmill project. This is indeed excellent news for the Co-op particularly as global demand has not abated for renewable technologies.

The electricity generated will be conveyed by underground cable to a sub-station, where it will be metered and fed into the local grid. Crop farming may continue as before with planting taking place right up to the base of the towers.

The blades will start turning when the wind speed at hub-height reaches 3 to 5 m/s. At very high wind speeds the blades will stop rotating to prevent damage.