Eneco has now entered the formal consultation period for the project and will be holding eight public exhibitions to provide people with information and updates on Navitus Bay, along with the next steps. There will also be an opportunity to speak with a member of the development team and provide feedback on the proposals.
The public exhibitions will be held at the following venues and times:
Swanage: Mowlem Theatre – Tuesday 21stFebruary 2012, 2pm to 8pm
Poole: RNLI Lifeboat College – Wednesday 22nd February 2012, 2pm to 8pm
Christchurch: Christchurch Borough Council Chambers – Thursday 23rd February 2012, 2pm to 8pm
Bournemouth: Pavilion Theatre – Saturday 25th February 2012, 10am to 4pm
West Moors: West Moors Memorial Hall – Tuesday 28th February 2012, 2pm to 8pm
New Milton: New Milton Memorial Centre – Wednesday 29th February 2012, 2pm to 8pm
Lymington: Lymington Community Centre – Friday 2nd March 2012, 2pm to 8pm
Newport, Isle of Wight: Riverside Centre – Saturday 3rd March 2012, 10 am to 4pm
The final design of Navitus Bay Wind Park, both onshore and offshore, will be determined only after comprehensive consultation with the public and relevant organisations throughout the formal consultation period of the project which will last until the end of 2013.
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38 comments:
Tilting at windmills???
Well presented exhibition. Too many visitors to talk to representatives. Representative from Purbeck Society was there who was against the Wind Farm and Nico from the Gazette was there. There was a petition against the wind farm. I think the picture understates the impact of the turbines which are almost twice the height of St. Paul's Cathedral. Enjoyed putting stickers on map of Purbeck showing where you could see the turbines from including Swanage sea front, the High Street, Durlston Bay, the Square and Compass, Kingswood Farm viewpoint, the viewpoints at Steeple and Whiteway Farm. Windfarms will make it difficult to film Thomas Hardy's novels and will spoil the view from people on boat trips. It will not do wildlife much good. It will only provide power for 680 homes when there is a gentle wind blowing. No power with no wind or in a hurricane.
Well what can I say , I learnt 2 new things today about wind farms. 1. Noise cannot travel . 2 . And wind can be predicted months in advance. Sold , let's lose our heritage site;)
The wind farm will also spoil the view from the Needles and Tennyson Down. The west coast of the Isle of Wight is an area of outstanding natural beauty. Perhaps the people living in Swanage who are against the wind farm should enlist support from people in the Isle of Wight and from the Hampshire coast. The wind turbines are also in the flightpath of thousands of migrating birds.
The Bournemouth Liberal Democrats are doing an online survey about the Navitus Wind Farm. 55% are against it and 45% support it. The survey is at Bournemouth-libdems.org.uk
Why do they have public Consultations when they do not know what they are doing? They don't how many and how big. They are doing surveys which are not complete, so therefore they don't know what effect will be, and they are apologising for getting the graphics wrong and making the views look better than they are likely to be. It sounds as they are keeping their options open. They hadn't considered how to rescue a diver with "bends" from a dive site in the middle of of the wind farm, vet their map shows the greatest concentraction of dive sites in that area. When asked how a helicopter could make s rescue, they said they would stop the blades turning. They obviously have not seen a rescue take place where there is a need for the Helicopter and lifeboat to be traveling at speed. They certainly do not want 670 foot obstructions in the way even if they were stationary. The wind farm proposal has not yet discovered the effect on the lifeboats radar yet and so on?
John , I was told that no boats or divers were allowed into this park , so surely accidents like this will not happen! So can we apply to be windfarm bouncers ?
Also what shocked me was the chance of shredding of the propellers when we have high winds.
Will the wind farm be lit up at night? If so it will have a strong visual impact on the people who live in Swanage and the Isle of Wight.
No , as I was told that the lights will not be seen from land as the light will shine down. Though there will be a aviation light on top of them.
David,
There are many dive sites within the area according to the maps, and when I asked what would happen if a diver was suffering from the bends and needed to be airlifted to Poole. I was told they would switch the farm off. I msut admit I find that reply somewhat lacking in understanding of the situation. I was told that both dive boats and any leisure boat will be allowed to sail through the farm.
John , thing is if they anchor these turbines , which they have 3 options on how they would do this. Will these dive sites still be there. Then also we have to take into account the 20cm wide cables of which 3 cables will be attached to each turbine. So say 300 turbines , that's 900 cables. And yes they reply is a bit odd and not the kind of reply you would expect :(
Ah, to be a Chaucerian fool in search of a place to rest one's own humble feet. I gather this farm is going to go down like a bit of a tempest in a teapot? Or even a Llosasian feast of the goat? Bah!
see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hr6bk/Horizon_20082009_Can_We_Make_a_Star_on_Earth/
We had Mike Green on the radio show yesterday talking about the windfarm - it's the first item here on the podcast:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bdb
A few facts to consider:
1. A single turbine of 1 meg capacity will generate 2.5 kw hours of electricity per year (enough to meet the needs of almost 600 houses)
2. Wind farms will generate electricity around 80 -85% of the time. There is no thermal waste in the conversion to electricity
3. Wind power receives a tiny subsidy compared to nuclear. (Nuclear receives a subsidy of £1b pa and the costs of decommissioning come on top - currently estimated to be £75 billion. Wow!
4. Oil and gas supplies will eventually become too scarce and expensive.
5. Wind farms do provide employment for the port area that supports the organisation.
6. Wind farms are undoubtably ugly, are likely to do some harm to birdlife, diving opportunities etc.
Given all of above I think wind farms win hands down, and remember they are planned all along the coast - eg: Bognor to Newhaven. The same old arguments are raging there too. They are almost unstoppable so we all may have to get used to them - the price we pay for using up all the natural resources and wanting day and night light and heat, domestic appliances, computers, TVs etc.
Woops - 1. above should read 2.5 million kw hours !
Noise of the mechanical gearing system is similar to that of a motorcycle and this can be quietened to a limited extent. But the low-frequency, penetrating sound of the rotating blades is more troublesome. It has been compared to the low thud of base notes from loud music, or the sound of a helicopter at a distance. So far there has been no success in reducing this noise, which can continue unabated day and night for extended periods and can travel several miles. There are recognised health problems such as pulse irregularity and sleep disturbance associated with this type of low-frequency sound, which is sometimes below the normal audible limit.
In assessing the suitability of a site, wind-energy developers measure the audible range of noise, but never the infrasound - the low-frequency noise - which is sometimes below audible limits. Developers do not generally acknowledge wind turbines do produce low-frequency noise and vibrations, and they assume there will be no noise problems for residents living more than 500 metres away from a wind farm. At a recent wind farm planning hearing in New Zealand, residents living up to three kilometres from a wind farm described how their lives were disturbed by turbine noise and vibrations, sometimes for several days on end.
In South Cumbria, local residents, having suffered four years of noise disturbance from turbines, have initiated court action against the developers and the local Council in an attempt to resolve the issue of noise nuisance. This is after pre-construction assurances from the developers that the design and control systems would ensure there would be no noise nuisance.
Research done in the Netherlands at an installation of 17 wind turbines on the German/Dutch border has shown that the noise level is far higher than predicted by the developers, particularly at night. The developer's predictions were made based on wind speeds measured at 10 metres from the ground, but at night the wind speed at the height of the turbine hubs (98m) is frequently much greater. A group of turbines produce pulses of sound which cause greater effect when they synchronise. "The sound then resembles distant pile-driving or as a resident said: an endless train".
Another study into low-frequency noise concluded that:
"… the levels of both ground-borne and air-borne sound which cause disturbance are lower in amplitude than originally thought to be troublesome or to be detectable by people."
The report went on to say that because of rising levels of low-frequency sound,
" it is not unreasonable to speculate that in future a greater proportion of the population will be troubled."
Articles in the The Daily Telegraph on April 16, 2009 ,describe the suffering of Mr and Mrs Davis living in the noisy shadow of a wind farm in Lincolnshire.
In 2007 a report was published by Barbara J Frey and Peter J Hadden on "Noise radiation from wind turbines installed near homes: effects on health" . This report includes an annotated review of the research and related issues, as well as comments from some of the families affected by wind turbines.
The review concludes that a safe buffer zone of at least 2km should exist between family dwellings and industrial wind turbines of up to 2MW installed capacity, with greater separation for a wind turbine greater than 2MW installed capacity.
6. Health issues
It was reported in July, 2009, that the number of people in Ontario, Canada, reporting adverse health affects due to wind turbines continues to rise. The new total is now 86 which is an additional 33 new victims. This is a disturbing 62% increase from 53 as reported in the first WCO community-based self reporting survey earlier this year, made public on April 22, 2009.
Dr Nina Pierpont has done substantial research on these health issues and written a new book on the subject of health hazards from the vibrations of wind turbines, referred to elsewhere on this site as vibro-acoustic disease.
Wind Turbine Syndrome is the clinical name she has given to the constellation of symptoms experienced by many (though not all) people who find themselves living near industrial wind turbines: sleep problems (insomnia), headaches, dizziness, unsteadiness, nausea, exhaustion, anxiety, anger, irritability, depression, memory loss, eye problems, problems with concentration and learning, tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
As industrial wind-plants proliferate close to people’s homes and anywhere else people regularly congregate (schools, nursing homes, places of business, etc.), Wind Turbine Syndrome likely will become an industrial plague.
Research in Portugal published in May, 2007, also demonstrates that wind turbines in the proximity of residential areas produce acoustical environments that can lead to the development of "Vibro-Acoustic Disease" in nearby home-dwellers.
Other medical studies indicate that onshore wind farms can be a health hazard to people living nearby because of the low-frequency noise. Low-frequency noise travels further than audible noise; it is ground borne and felt through vibrations, which can resonate with the human body. For some people there is no effect, but for others it can be very disturbing. According to a report by Dr Geoff Leventhall, a fellow of the Institute of Physics and Institute of Acoustics, 'Low-frequency noise causes extreme distress to a number of people who are sensitive to its effects.'
Research by Dr Amanda Harry showed that all but one of the 14 people living near the Bears Down wind farm in Cornwall had experienced increased incidents of headaches, and 10 said they had problems sleeping and suffered from anxiety. According to Dr Harry, a local GP in the area, there was a range of reported symptoms from headaches, migraines, nausea, dizziness, palpitations and tinnitus to sleep disorders, stress anxiety and depression.
Dr Bridget Osborne, a doctor in Moel Maelogan, north Wales, where three turbines were erected in 2002, has presented a paper to the Royal College of General Practitioners in which she reported a marked increase of depression suffered by local people.
The Danish government has stopped erecting onshore turbines because of the health problems associated with noise.
SHWAG (Seamer and Hilton Wind-farm Action Group) an action group in the northeast of England near Middlesborough published a report in January 2009 describing many of the risks to the general public from wind turbines including noise, light flicker and the growing number of accidents worldwide involving giant turbines catching fire, shedding blades or parts of blades and throwing large ice lumps.
7. Light pollution
The strobe effect when sun is behind the rotating blades can, according to medical opinion, cause dizziness, headaches and trigger seizures. Shadow flicker and reflected light from the blades can also cause problems. These light disturbances are experienced inside the home as well as outside.
In April 2005, the BBC reported that the owners of a wind turbine near a top-security prison have agreed to turn the turbine off in the early mornings to prevent possible 'security problems' because the prisoners were becoming upset by the flickering shadows.
Will do the rest later got to go to work on my bicycle that saves the planet;)
8. Jobs and tourism
Evidence from Europe suggest a 40% drop in tourism in areas where there are wind farms. The 2002 Visit Scotland Survey of visitor attitude showed that tourists avoid landscapes with wind turbines. Tourism earns £2 billion a year for Wales. It contributes 7% to the GDP. Agriculture contributes 2%; the electricity industry also contributes 2%. A typical wind farm employs one maintenance person.
The effects of a drop in tourism will be felt most keenly rural areas. Most tourists come to Wales to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of the countryside and to engage in outdoor activities. Wind farms are incompatible with this type of tourism. The result will be fewer visitors to rural areas and, therefore, fewer tourism-related jobs in communities where employment opportunities are already very limited. MLAG is aware of three rural business enterprises: a game shoot and two sound studios, whose continued existence is under threat from proposed wind farms. All these businesses employ local people, and visits from clients from outside the area to these businesses are a benefit to the local economy. The closure of these businesses will be a loss to the local community.
9. House prices
Evidence from Denmark, the USA and the UK indicates that houses in the vicinity of turbines lose 25 to 30% of their value. Houses close to a turbine could be unsalable.
There has been a legal ruling against a couple in the Lake District who sold their house without telling the buyers that a wind farm was likely to be built nearby. The judge upheld the purchasers' claim that their house had been devalued by noise pollution, light flicker and damage to visual amenity caused by wind turbines and ordered the vendors to pay compensation of 20% of the purchase value of the house.
In May 2005, a local resident near Brechfa reported in the Carmarthen Journal that:
"Our property, in the middle of the proposed TAN8 site (Strategic Area G) had a firm offer of £318,000. One week later our prospective purchaser, who incidentally knew about the turbines and had no problem with them, said they would do us a favour and take it off our hands at a big financial risk - for a reduced £250,000 which was higher than the 40 per cent we could expect to get, being near turbines!"
In July 2005, a study was made of a sample of properties near a proposed wind farm at Esgairwen Fawr, near Lampeter, Ceredigion, Eight properties were valued and estimates made of the loss due to nearby wind turbines. Total loss for the eight properties was in excess of £1.5 million, or typically 20 – 25% on each property
10. The economics of wind power
Wind power is one of the most expensive forms of electricity; it survives on direct and indirect subsidies. This extra cost to taxpayers is not good value because wind energy cannot provide firm generating capacity nor can it make a significant contribution in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
An article in The Telegraph, dated Monday August 10, 2009, quotes from the Government's Renewable Energy Strategy with plans to increase the proportion of Britain's energy generated by "green" sources is set to cost between 11 and 17 times what the change brings in economic benefits. The figures are buried deep in the Strategy paper produced in July. According to the document, while the expected cost will total around £4bn a year over the next 20 years, amounting to £57bn to £70bn, the eventual benefit in terms of the reduced carbon dioxide emissions will be only £4bn to £5bn over that entire period.
According to the most recent figures from the industry regulator, Ofgem, there were more than 16m ROCs in the year to March 2008, worth £872m. That is an extra £872m on the bills of every household and business in the UK supplied with electricity – in just one year.
An article in the Times dated July 10, 2009, highlighted the "Green Fuel shock":
"Millions of families face being hit with higher fuel bills to pay for a new 'green energy revolution' due to be unveiled by Labour next week. The levies on the price of gas and electricity - dubbed 'green stealth taxes' by critics - will help pay for renewable energy to tackle climate change, including building 7,000 wind turbines over the next 11 years
According to Ofgem, subsidies currently stand at £485 million a year.
"Wind farms get around three times as much in subsidy - a mixture of selling ROCS [renewable obligation certificates] and a share of fines paid by non-renewable plants - as they do from selling electricity"
Wind turbines are a quick and cheap way for power companies to avoid penalties for not meeting government targets on renewables and for gaining subsidies.
The Renewable Obligation subsidy system pays for wind power at the point of generation, not delivery. This means that even the wind-generated electricity that is lost in transmission or wasted because it is generated when there is no demand is rewarded with government subsidies. The Committee of Public Accounts Report on Renewable Energy, published in September 2005, concluded that the Renewable Obligation subsidy system gives undue support to wind power at the expense of other renewable technologies. This report estimated that the Renewable Obligation subsidy system will be adding £1 billion a year to electricity prices by 2010. The expansion of distribution and transmission capacity needed to meet the government’s 10% renewables target will add another £1.5 billion to consumer costs.
Even the CEO of E.ON UK (formerly Powergen) is on record as saying:
"Without the renewable obligation certificates nobody would be building wind farms."
Radar Interference
Aviation safety is one of the main reasons why plans to build wind farms are held up. The concern is that they interfere with the radar used in air-traffic control. Some people even argue that they could be used as cover by terrorists or enemy aircraft in time of war. In Britain such worries have caused the shelving or refusal of more than 40 proposed wind farms.
The standard radar used by air-traffic control centres can see a long way, but finds it difficult to tell between a moving aircraft and the whirling blades of a wind turbine. Radar works by sweeping a pulsed radio signal around a wide area and then measuring the time it takes for the signal to be reflected back by any objects in its path. This allows the position of those objects to be plotted on a screen. Aircraft can normally be distinguished from stationary objects because the Doppler effect changes the frequency of the returned signal.
Although a wind turbine does not change position, its blades are moving and these also cause a Doppler effect. The returning signal from a wind turbine thus creates illuminated blobs on a radar screen that look just like moving aircraft. Moreover, the blobs do not keep still because every four seconds or so, as the radar beam sweeps past, the signal is bounced back by different parts of the turbine’s blades in unpredictable and confusing ways. The clutter this causes on the screen is made worse when the signal is bounced around between different turbines in the same farm. The result is that wind farms can be impossible to filter out because the resolution of a typical long-range radar is not high enough to detect the difference between the Doppler effect caused by an aircraft and that caused by a wind turbine.
Sorry for the long posts , oh and those posts were brought to you by a solar power iPod ;)
I would just like to state that I am all for renewable energy , though the visual impact of this farm is too big and to close to the coast. If this company is so big why not build it off the coast of The Netherlands and feed a pipe to us that way. Or the government should give the money to people in Britain to have all houses insulated which would save more energy 55 times more than this wind farm;)
Thanks Zoe. I'm not convinced about the tourism argument, but the risks and expense of this wind farm are not worth the bother. Fire up Winfrith . Build it elevated so no tsunami can hit it. Make it turn off if there is an earthquake. Build a giant lake next to it so if all electricity fails it can be cooled by gravity. Put Lord Sugar in charge of safety. Let's have cheap safe and clean nuclear energy, not just a modest contribution to the National Grid for all the expense of a wind farm.
Given all of above I think wind farms win hands down, and remember they are planned all along the coast - eg: Bognor to Newhaven. The same old arguments are raging there too. They are almost unstoppable so we all may have to get used to them - the price we pay for using up all the natural resources and wanting day and night light and heat, domestic appliances, computers, TVs etc."
There's a map on todays Guardian and it only shows 3 on the South Coast.2 around Bognor and the one off the Isle Of Wight.
I concur with 'Seeview' above, they're unstoppable, because they are on Crown Estate land, (outside planning control) and the Revenue to the Crown will be considerable. Not from only the Wind Turbine site rental but where the power is landed thereby crossing Crown Foreshore, (between high and low water). The Royal Family will be able to have a new Royal Yacht and an A380 Airbus Jumbo.
An article that appeared last Monday indicated that the UK will lose out on any major wind farm building, having been pipped to the post by other European nations for EU subsidies. It seems the government has been sitting too long while more crafty EU partners got their bids in.
Is that a surprise
2/3/12 12:29 PM above should take into account that Navitur Bay Wind Park 'Ltd' is a wholly owned subsidiary of Enerco Wind Ltd, which in turn is owned, (up the line) by its parent company, ENERCO BV, a Dutch Utility Company who have obviously obtained provisional EU Funding for the Navitus Bay Project. So both the 'funding' and the 'real (Crown) Estate, are outside the British or Local Government, who of course will not see a penny of the profits in tax.
RobO
They are almost unstoppable so we all may have to get used to them - the price we pay for using up all the natural resources and wanting day and night light and heat, domestic appliances, computers, TVs etc." (seeview)
http://www.economywatch.com/world-industries/oil/peak-oil.html
Check out other websites for further information.
There is a crisis looming. Easy to reach oil is running out, at some point (if this has not already happened), demand will outstrip supply. What then ??
How are we are going to provide for our energy hungry habits ??
By 2020 the UK has to supply 15% of its energy from renewable sources. At this time it is supplying 3%.
Sadly, whilst we continue to depend on difficult to reach sources of oil there is a risk of wars and destroying valuable habitats in other parts of the world, where their own energy consumption may be comparitively low.
Out of site out of mind.
oil is running out, at some point (if this has not already happened), demand will outstrip supply. What then ??
Nuclear power
Nuclear power, what about the waste ?? and the accidents ? Not ideal either.
Fission reactors need to run at full capacity all the time, even when demand is low. Large amounts of electricity cannot be stored, which leaves a problem. It doesn't make sense to use nuclear power for more than base load. Something more flexible is needed to cover variations in demand. What should this be? For the foreseeable future, it will be fossil fuels, so any wind generation reduces the need for fossil fuel power stations to run.
Pump water up a hill and release when needed
The waste? Blast it into space, until fusion is with us. Accidents surly we have learnt enough?
In reply to my complaint to The Civil Aviation Authority, the CAA reply claim that the aircraft REV401 was a survey flight operated by RVL Group.
They say; "the aircraft REV401 flew from Nottingham East Midlands Airport to conduct surveys over Swansea, Poole and Sheffield: RVL Group, RVL House, Building 21, East Midlands Airport, DE74 2SA; ops@rvl-group.com .
I can’t help but think it is to do with the Wind Farm!
Pump water up a hill and release when needed
Pump by hand ??
Hydro, great idea, using rivers to generate electricity, including old mills. As long as no damage is done to the river ecology, this could be done. But there is only a small amount of Hydro energy available,especially in Dorset where rivers do not have much of a head, at best Dorset rivers could supply less than 1% of Dorset's energy consumption even if every possible location were used. The figure for the Uk as a whole is less than 5GW even if many valleys were flooded.
The waste? Blast it into space, until fusion is with us. Accidents surly we have learnt enough?
Do we learn from past mistakes ?Sadly, it seems we don't.
Thank you for providing such great info and service. More power to you!
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