Clean energy for Wales
Gordon James
Onshore wind is one of the cleanest and cheapest forms of electricity generation available. As such, it is a vital weapon in our battle against climate change.
Official figures show that onshore wind costs £38/MWh (megawatt-hour) compared to £114/MWh for gas and £128/MWh for the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station [1]. Our electricity bills are high because, absurdly, they are tied to the cost of gas [2] even though renewables generate more of our power.
Wind energy is also generally popular. The Government’s public attitudes tracker shows that onshore wind is supported by 73% of the population [3]. Concern about climate change is an important factor in this.
Despite countless international conferences, such as the COP 30 hosted by Brazil this week, climate changing emissions keep rising fuelling destructive extremes of weather in all parts of the globe.
In November last year, nearly a month’s worth of rain fell on Bannau Brycheiniog in one night causing the river Taff to burst its banks flooding homes in Pontypridd and elsewhere [4]. Welsh farmers are also suffering. One study has concluded that extremes of weather are already costing them tens of millions of pounds [5].
World Weather Attribution has calculated that this year’s deadly wildfires in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus were made ten times more likely by climate change [6] while the recent super hurricane that smashed through Jamaica was 30% stronger.
Climate change is mainly caused, not by “the power of the sun or volcanoes” as ludicrously claimed by Reform UK’s Richard Tice in an interview on BBC Breakfast last year [7], but by burning coal, oil and gas. The key to lessening its destructive impact is switching as quickly as possible from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
While opening COP 30, the UN general secretary, Antonia Guterres, welcomed some progress in clean energy developments but warned that we are on track to miss the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. This target, he stated, was a “red line” for a habitable planet and that “every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement and loss – especially for those least responsible. This is a moral failure.” [8].
As Wales, for so long a powerhouse of coal-fired industrialisation, has made a significant contribution to the emissions that are unravelling the climate stability on which our civilisation depends, it surely now has a duty to make a full contribution to the zero carbon revolution. Or are we to say to those who, in countries like Bangladesh, Jamaica and the Pacific Islands, are losing their homes, their livelihoods and sometimes their lives, that we are not prepared to allow clean energy structures on our landscape?
Landscapist
Our most prominent landscapists – those who are using the hose pipe to water the flower bed when the house is going on fire – must be the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW).
CPRW was given extensive coverage in Nation Cymru on the 28th of October when readers were told that it supports “renewable energy solutions when they work in harmony with Wales’s landscapes”. As wind turbines and solar panels are visible on landscapes, it would appear that most would only satisfy the organisation’s criteria if they were cited underground!
On the 1st of July, Nation Cymru carried an article by CPRW which stated that, at the Pen y Cymoedd windfarm, “the excavated peat had been destroyed and degraded”. This surprised me as the windfarm’s planning application had included a commitment to restore peatlands. In response to this, I organised a visit of seven people, including botanists and an energy consultant, to the windfarm. What we found was an extensive peat and habitat restoration programme being expertly guided by Natural Resources Wales – quite the opposite of the impression given in the article.
It is also disappointing to see Plaid Cymru – the party which once provided courageous and inspiring leadership on environmental issues – become more negative about renewable energy. It is easy to become entangled in the multiple reasons for objecting to these proposals, particularly in response to local concerns, whilst pushing into the background their raison d’etre – the immense crisis of climate change. The party is in danger of being accused of fiddling while Rome burns.
Disastrous
Climate scientist, Genevieve Guenther, recently wrote, “the children we have in our homes today are threatened with a chaotic, disastrous and unliveable future”. We would rather not believe it, but this is the frightening reality that we face.
Wales has a huge potential for developing clean energy resources which benefit the environment, human health and the economy. The opportunities are so great and the prospects for the future so serious, we must press that green button. We do not have time on our side.
Notes
- https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-expensive-gas-not-net-zero-is-keeping-uk-electricity-prices-so-high/
- https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/desnz-public-attitudes-tracker-spring-2025/desnz-public-attitudes-tracker-renewable-energy-spring-2025-uk
- 4. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/wales-valleys-floods-aberfan-climate-adaptation
- 5. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgyr68lrr8o
- https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/weather-conditions-leading-to-deadly-wildfires-in-turkiye-cyprus-and-greece-made-10-times-more-likely-due-to-climate-change/
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/31/factcheck-no-richard-tice-volcanoes-are-not-to-blame-for-climate-change
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/06/missing-15c-climate-target-is-a-moral-failure-guterres-tells-cop30-summit?utm_source=cbnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-11-07&utm_campaign=Daily+Briefing+Leaders+speak+ahead+of+COP30+Norway+s+%243bn+TFFF+boost+UK+to+double-down+on+net-zero
- Genevieve Guenther is an expert reviewer for the UN Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change and author of ‘The Language of Climate Politics’. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/jun/24/tipping-points-climate-crisis-expert-doomerism-wealth
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We should be more economical with energy. We cannot destroy the landscape with hundreds of windmills and power facilities.
Many more wind turbines please! If we have enough of them we could possibly phase out gas power stations entirely (or convert them to green hydrogen). Once the gas power stations are out of the market energy prices will decrease and I dunno about anyone else, but energy prices are still absurd.
I agree – lots more turbines offshore where the wind is stronger, more constant and needs less balancing and grid costs
I’m happy with onshore wind too. I’d be extremely happy if someone put one right in my back yard.
At 250 m high?
Sure why not. Neighbours might have to sacrifice some of their garden space to accommodate, but if my garden was big enough, absolutely.
I pretty much walk my dogs amongst the turbines near where I live, I really don’t get the fuss. Sadly, my home isn’t on top of the mountain where it would be ideal.
And how big are those?
If green energy became king the UK would still charge top prices. It’s called ‘greed’.
The actual production, transportation and erection of turbines counteracts much of the benefits. Also, foreign companies benefit, not you!
There’s nothing stopping community enterprises from setting up. I compare and contrast the total carbon chain of wind turbines… to any fossil fuel plant (or heck even bio-fuel). I’ll guarantee you here and now wind turbines come out better. They’re not perfect I’ll grant, but if we always aim for perfect we will get nowhere and we’d still be stuck on coal. As for not benefiting from the two local wind farms to me (one on either mountain), I don’t personally benefit sure, but my community does as the wind turbines generate a community fund expected to last until around… Read more »
Just to clarify, the quote I used about Pen y Cymoedd was not mine, I was quoting from the Welsh Government soils policy unit in a briefing note to the Cabinet Secretary, obtained under a FoI request. This is available now on the WG website
So, not my words, but the words of the Welsh Government
DESNZ public attitudes tracker Copy of email sent to Ed Miliband on November 4th Dear Secretary of State I see that the summer 2025 public attitudes tracker questions are still likely to generate erroneous results To pick one, close to my heart, the question covering onshore wind farms “Now imagine there are plans for an onshore wind farm to e constructed in your local area. How happy or unhappy would you be about this? If you already have this in your local area, answer on the basis of how you feel about this now” Through my front window I see a… Read more »
Just to clarify the CPRW position on wind power – it is essential to reach net zero However, a quick glance at the NESO Future Energy Scenarios reports over the past couple of years will show you … Wales currently uses about 15 TWh of electricity To reach net zero Wales will need about 40 TWh of electricity Wales has the potential to produce about 10 TWh from onshore wind And 70 TWh from offshore wind So with ONLY offshore wind Wales can easily achieve net zero levels of generation AND continue to export electricity to the rest of GB,… Read more »
I don’t know where to start with this nonsense. But let’s focus on the last paragraph.; what is your proposition? Move SMRs to city Centre so that we can benefit from district heating? Do you know how hard it is to get approval for new nuclear sites?
in my view, one of the biggest problem with renewables is non-experts posing as experts, thinking they know all the solutions. That’s why the UK government convenes 5+ expert committees and organisations to advise on energy policy….
And that’s why the U.K. Government has removed all locational restrictions for the siting of SMRs in the latest nuclear national policy statement EN-7 They wouldn’t need to be located in city centres but in industrial areas adjacent to cities The Welsh Government has already identified 16 areas in Wales for district heating networks eg Deeside, Wrexham, Port Talbot etc and SMRs could be a way of supplying those The SMR proposal in Bridgend will sell both heat and power Currently we have plans to build nuclear, throw away the heat, then use the electricity to power heat pumps to… Read more »
So you want to put a nuclear reactor in an industrial estate next to a city? Are you insane? But anything to maintain the CPRW vision of a landscape of rolling hills, cosy hamlets, rosy-cheeked farmers and little lambs in the fields (until they are horribly slaughtered).
It is current government policy that all new thermal power stations must consider combined heat and power under NPS EN-1, and has been since 2012
I simply do not know where to start with the jaw dropping ignorance shown by this article. Wales should take the burden of industrial sized onshore wind installations because the Welsh countryside was destroyed in the past by coal extraction that contributed to excessive CO2 emissions? This is deeply strange and flawed logic.
As the contributor said below, all onshore turbines are not created equal. I am happy to see 7 x 60 m tall turbines out of my kitchen window, a couple of km away from my home. I am not happy with the natural habitats of our uplands being ripped up to the detriment of wildlife and nature when we have so few wild places left. Trecelyn windfarm are planning to cut down 70-odd mature trees to prevent bats roosting too close to their 145 m tall turbines. We have a climate emergency to respond to, but as one of the… Read more »
So energy companies can destroy trees to stop bats roosting but if I have them in my attic it is against the law to disturb or remove them.
The idea is to cut down trees near the turbines to prevent bats roosting near them. This is BEFORE the bats arrive in the trees, because, yes, it is lllegal to disturb bats. Hope that makes it clear, maybe think things through before posting?
70 trees are not a great loss, provided you plant 700, or better yet, 7000 to replace them. Or do you refuse to use timber products in your home, on the basis that a tree has to be cut down to provide them? Or is it a case of “cut somebody else’s trees down for my kitchen worktop, but don’t spoil my view”? And stop repeating the “natural landscapes” line – it is nonsense. Nearly all British uplands are the exact opposite of “natural”, they are man-made ecological deserts with hardly any wildlife. Compare that to a rewilded and replanted… Read more »
As the dodgy companies who have moved into this can afford to pay off politicians and hire thugs to bully protestors, maybe their excessively large profit margins can be used to bring down prices even further, by higher taxes and then the option of nationalisation.
Yes, even our own Welsh Government thought it acceptable to hire the same security firm as Bute/GreenGen.
You are deluded if you think onshore wind is ‘green’. Quite apart from the resources required to make, ship and construct wind turbines, they are a source of toxic infrasound levels, microplastics and heavy metals pollution which is bio accumulative. The toxic legacy for future generations!
Over the life cycle, onshore wind is incredibly ‘green’. Picking up on a few smaller environmental impacts doesn’t offset against the enormous benefits from onshore renewables
picking up on the industrial scale destruction of the environment in the name of green energy is not small!
There is very little heavy metal pollution from wind and I’ve no idea what infrasound levels are. As for microplastics, they’re everywhere already. So overall they’re fairly minor
Hysterical nonsense.
So if we have nuclear reactors, there will be less pollution? On the other hand, if you want to advocate offshore wind as an alternative, the plastic and metal pollution will be worse, due to the more extreme wind and wave erosion of the structures. As for the infrasound, many studies have found no impact on those living nearby, so to state they are “toxic” is untrue. More research needs to be done, but at the moment there is no evidence to suggest that infrasound from turbines is any more problematical than that from waves on the beach, road noise,… Read more »
So we don’t need Nuclear!
In my view, as a FIET and medium business owner, I feel the article is somewhat misleading; renewable energy costs are high, not because of the technology itself, but due to the significant “system costs” required to integrate intermittent sources like wind and solar into the grid. Paragraph 2 claims of cheap renewables are misleading because they fail to account for the necessary back-up generation (like gas and nuke), the need for new transmission infrastructure and storage to handle the variable output. The current system doesn’t help with highest wholesale price being pinned to gas, but renewables are not 3-4 times cheaper.… Read more »
You don’t ‘need’ back up energy though. That’s potentially necessary during the transition period but a mature renewable energy network has no need for Nuclear or Fossil Fuel… it would have no need even for bio-fuel. The main issue we have is the lack of battery storage (whether lithium based, hydrogen based or salt based) but chronic years of under investment… much like getting rid of the gas storage tanks… and well what did anyone expect? On-shore wind and solar easily make up the cheapest and most substantial inflow of energy (or at least the potential to do so), already… Read more »
Gordon James simplistically presents industrial onshore wind as “clean and cheap”. For small rural communities like ours, targeted for 220-metre industrial turbines, that rosy picture looks dangerously naïve and out of touch with emerging scientific evidence on three critical counts. Firstly, acoustic science has recently changed irrevocably. Peer-reviewed research by Professor Ken Mattsson (Uppsala University) demonstrates that infrasound and low-frequency noise (ILFN) from modern wind turbines is significantly higher—and travels far further—than earlier industry models assumed.1 This renders the UK’s current noise standards, which entirely ignore ILFN, scientifically obsolete. Based on her own research2, Dr Ursula Maria Bellut-Staeck (Faculty of… Read more »
Why did you not submit this as an article, and not a comment? Clear and informed and balanced. Thank you.
I think you need to do some homework, if you think Paul’s contribution is balanced.
You have cherry-picked a few studies that confirm your preconceived prejudices, and included a list of references to give the impression that you are a “serious” researcher. The jury is still very much out on the supposed toxic effects of infrasound from windfarms; I can reference twice as many studies that show no harmful effect. If, as you claim, you support renewables, would you be happy with more acres of solar farms as an alternative? I would, but I suspect you would produce more cherry-picked studies to show how “toxic” a solar farm was. So do tell us what your… Read more »
Your jury might be out on the polluting, health-damaging effects of infrasound and low frequency noise from industrial wind turbines; mine isn’t. Of course you can reference numerous studies that show no harmful effect; it’s called the status quo. Open your mind, dig a little deeper and you might find a pattern of wind industry influence and reductive thinking. Your doubts about my support for renewable energy are misplaced; it’s simply a matter of scale and ownership. Yes, massive solar farms do have negative environmental impacts, but at least they don’t create infrasound. The solution is simple: appropriately scaled, community… Read more »
Since all human activity damages the environment, it is a matter of choosing the least damaging. What is missing from your rant against windfarms is any suggestion of a realistic alternative; local small-scale schemes sound lovely, but how are they to work where the population density is great, and the land available for solar farms is minimal, not to mention the increased need for electricity for EV’s for example? If you want to advocate for solar panels on every building I will be right behind you, but there are some people who even object to that. And I repeat, the… Read more »
And by the way,it’s not “my” jury, it is “the” jury. You clearly accept only those studies which support your position, and in labelling those that do not as the “status quo”, you betray your bias. Would you apply the same logic to the “status quo” on climate science? After all, there are still a few benighted individuals arguing that there is no such thing as global heating, while at the same time producing the occasional study to back that up. An open mind is a very good thing; so is looking in the mirror occasionally.
So much to unpick here, but what leapt out at me was the classic victim blaming, that ‘Wales has a duty’ to compensate for previous use of fossil fuels. I don’t think the Welsh population had much choice in the 19th and 20th century exploitation of their country.
Who is saying that?
Clean energy is essential — but what’s happening in rural Wales is not a fair or balanced transition. Communities are being asked to sacrifice their landscapes, heritage, wildlife and way of life for vast industrial-scale schemes that export power and profits elsewhere, while local infrastructure, biodiversity and democratic processes are sidelined. We are not against renewables — far from it — but we need a genuinely responsible approach that protects fragile environments, respects rural communities, and stops treating Wales as a dumping ground for oversized wind farms, pylons and associated roads. A just transition cannot be built on environmental harm… Read more »
It’s uh… not going to be fair or balanced. England doesn’t have the best landscape for wind energy (though it does have a great landscape for solar power and one only needs to read the local papers from Salisbury or Kent or Devon to realize that they’re complaining just as much). Wales also has the most (and best) opportunities for tidal energy. Scotland is best for off-shore wind farms (and hydroelectric, though they’re very much reluctant to flood a couple of the lochs on the scale required.) Scotland and Wales also both have excellent landscapes for on-shore wind energy. We… Read more »
There might well be an “extensive peat and habitat restoration programme” going on at Pen y Cymoedd, “expertly guided by NRW.” Could this by any chance be the same NRW whose expert at the Royal Welsh Show a couple of years ago pointed out to me that peat grows at a rate of 1cm every 10 years? The same NRW that no doubt works with the Welsh Government’s own soil expert, who strongly believed that Bute Energy’s Twyn Hywel wind farm should not be approved because of the destruction of peat that it would cause. All jolly words, “extensive programme”… Read more »
The costs cited are out of date. Plus, in DESNZ’s own words: “the simplicity of the [costs] measure means that there are factors which are not considered”. These factors include back-up, balancing, grid expansion & the constraint payments which are required for intermittent generation. At a recent DESNZ Committee, the Big 6 energy suppliers gave evidence that even if wholesale (generation) costs fell to zero, electricity bills would remain high because of all these mounting add-on costs. Grid upgrades and expansion alone are estimated to cost in the region of £100bn across GB over the coming years. That would equate… Read more »
If we got rid of all other forms of generation, how many wind turbines and acreage of solar panels would we need to satisfy Wales power needs?
Well a nuclear power station takes up around 450 acres. Wind turbines to generate the same output would occupy around 150,000 acres.
Interesting. Have a feel that facts such as these are highly pertinent.
10 GW of offshore wind and we could reach net zero
No, the turbines would occupy a small fraction of that 150,000 acres. The space between them could be used for a variety of things; tree planting, vegetable growing, greenhouses, even sheep grazing (if you are stupid enough to think that grazing sheep is good for the environment). As windfarms are generally sited on bare sheep-blasted hillsides, which have little or no agricultural, economic, or even leisure value (you can’t walk on them due to the presence of impassable bogs), the 150,000 acres you quote is not such a big deal.