Huhne Can I Turn To - When Nobody Needs Me?*

Warning: The following is not a 'wind' up!

The Sunday Telegraph reports that Britain's biggest wind farm companies are to be paid not to produce electricity when the wind is blowing, resulting in them being paid thousands of pounds per day, per wind farm, as the National Grid cannot store the electricity produced.

Despite the fact that, reportedly, electricity customers are paying more than £1billion a year to subsidise wind farms and other forms of renewable energy, straight out of the starting block comes RenewableUK, the trade body which represents the renewable energy industry, on whose behalf a spokesman stated all suppliers to the National Grid periodically were asked to reduce output to control the balancing mechanism. He said it was simply evidence of the growing part wind energy had to play in Britain's supply needs that turbines would occasionally be taken off the National Grid adding "..... The reality is the National Grid's job is to ensure we have adequate capacity to meet demand at any one time." - obviously without regard to any costs to the consumer!

The Renewables Obligation is another 'scam made in heaven' for the energy companies - and as Professor Michael Laughton, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the University of London, said: "People will find it very hard to understand that an electricity company is getting paid the market rate plus a subsidy for doing nothing. It is essentially a waste of consumers' money." Christopher Booker has long been a critic of wind turbines and an example of his views can be found here and his excellent book on this 'scam' can be purchased here.

* With apologies to Lesley Bricusse and Anthony Newley - and the words "When nobody needs me" can be applied, at readers discretion, to either his present troubles or the wind turbines.