While perhaps still slightly premature, in England at least on-shore wind is virtually dead – at least for the time being. The Conservative Government has slashed the Feed-in-tarrif to almost nothing and tinkered with the planning system such that only the staunchest of ‘wind friendly‘ planning authorities would consider daring to say ‘yes‘. Given this counter-pronged attack there are schemes with permission going un-built and only the mad ultra-brave would consider filing for new planning permission under the current regime.

The Nimbies will be rejoicing.

Although for how long remains to be seen. The power has to come from somewhere and the Tories have decided its going to be gas. Fracked gas. With a commitment to build the next generation of gas fired power stations, if the gas isn’t from UK fracking it will presumably have to come from abroad – more CO2, higher prices, less secure.

In theory at least, the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament remain wind friendly although we’ve yet to see what, if anything, they will offer in terms of planning and subsidy.