Wind of change in the uplands

Travelling to Middlesmoor in the heart of the Nidderdale Area of National Beauty (AONB) to look at Stephen Ramsden’s wind turbine really shouldn’t have filled me with that much excitement. I had seen it all before some three years ago and ruled it out, but this time was different. Much has happened in the world of micro-generation and in a short space of time we have gone from Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) to Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) rewarding generators with a healthy increase in price per unit of electricity. Surely now this machine should show a good return on capital!

Stephen Ramsden is bit of a one off really, a working hill farmer who also runs an estate consisting of around 5000 acres with some farms tenanted. Those of you who know Stephen will know he is not short of a word or two and has a view on most things including climate change. Just three days after our football debacle in South Africa I wasn’t really ready for more doom and gloom but apparently according to Stephen our recent severe winter was not a one off. The UK has relied on the Gulf Stream to warm us in winter but lately this Gulf Stream is losing heat. The Gulf Stream transports water from the tropics to Northern Europe where it is cooled, its density increases causing a sinking effect and it returns to the tropics, completing the this ocean current conveyer belt. This conveyer belt is dependent on the salinity of the water in the North Atlantic and the melting of our most northerly icecaps due to climate change means more and more freshwater is entering the North Atlantic - slowing down this conveyer belt on which our UK climate depends. More harsh winters are on the way...

Now, severe weather in the uplands can have its advantages if you are blessed with a grouse moor. But if you have a thousand Swale ewes to keep alive, as Stephen does, then the prospects are very different and generally expensive to the tax payer. However Stephen’s turbines should offer a solution to upland farmers having to cope with our increasingly frisky climate, but our host, a bit of a pioneer on micro-generation in Nidderdale, is set to lose out. It appears he is stuck with the ROC and cannot access the more lucrative FIT.

Later, at his local watering hole I heard from farmers who were in the process of investing in wind power projects. Despite the FITs there were still problems at hand – availability of grid connection, electricity companies demanding mega bucks and moving the goalposts by increasing quotes, confusion over what RDPE funding could and couldn’t support, not supporting the innovators and so it went on.

Through the mist I could see a clear take home point. For now, the most profitable micro-generation projects with FITs are those where you use the generated electricity yourself, rather than export it, but this is never going to solve our climate problem.

Severe winters are expensive to taxpayers, who have to subsidise farmers struggling to cope with the impacts of more extreme weather. But as occupiers of the windiest onshore sites in the UK these same farmers should be empowered to generate wind energy for the Grid, rather than be squeezed by big business and Government bureaucracy. In the long run, if we can slow down climate change through using farm assets wisely to generate wind energy, tax payers needn’t face the expense of supporting farmers through severe weather and upland farmers wouldn’t struggle to survive. But the stakes for investing in wind are still too high. Until the issues of connection, tariffs, funding and trust are resolved, in my opinion we don’t have a sound business case for proceeding and upland farmers will continue to struggle with elements, while tax payers foot the bill...

David Hugill farms a three-way beef cross and 25,000 free range chickens on 150 hectares near North Allerton in North Yorkshire. You can contact him by email at Davidhugill2@aol.com