It’s “irrational” for UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to cut off subsidies to the country’s onshore wind power industry, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said last week.
“The industry has pointed out, and I think it’s incontrovertible, that onshore wind is clearly still the most cost-effective, large-scale way of deploying renewable technology in the UK,” Ewing said in a BBC radio interview. The subsidy cuts would cost UK consumers an extra £2 to £3 billion (US$3.1 to US$4.6 billion) by forcing the country to meet its renewable power and carbon reduction goals with costlier sources.
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“The headlong rush seems to be the wrong way to go about government decisions,” Ewing said, adding that the government’s determination to cut the subsidies is “causing concern for investors who have committed several hundreds of millions of pounds in projects which were to proceed.”
In the recent UK election, the Conservative Party promised to end subsidies for onshore wind and make new project approvals contingent on local buy-in.
