Thursday evening saw approximately 30 villagers coming along to our public meeting with a mixed variety of views being expressed. On Friday we moved to Coxheath village hall with another 20 or so attendees. Both meetings had been publicised in local newspapers, Parish Council web sites and magazines plus the East Farleigh local news and Kent Messenger web sites. Slides from the main presentation can be found here.

In summary, at East Farleigh as you might expect, there were a number of residents (whose properties are closest to the proposed turbine site) that expressed major concerns over the project and we hope that the meeting was at least useful in explaining the nature and scale of the wind turbine. The opinions expressed at Coxheath were in the majority supportive of the scheme – again possibly as expected since residents of Coxheath are unlikely to be effected.

A number of people requested personalised photo-montages, for example from their rear garden, and we will get these constructed and posted onto the website in the next week or so.

Concerns Raised

Some of the concerns and misconceptions that arose are listed below:

  1. Vast amounts of concrete and paved access roads would be required – the turbine sits on a 7x7x1m slab buried 2m below the surface and existing farm tracks would be re-inforced only where needed with water permeable hardcore, gravel or “planings”
  2. The new Government might cancel the Feed In Tariff scheme as part of its cut backs. In fact the FITs scheme is guaranteed but not funded by the Government – primarily its funded by electricity consumers themselves. Therefore the Government would not save a penny by scrapping FITs. Moreover without FITs, investment in renewables will simply stop dead.
  3. Such a small turbine isnt going to make any difference. Pure economics might suggest we install a 120m tall 1 or 2MW turbine, however we feel the size of turbine chosen is more appropriate for the site. In addition, if as a country we chose to generate more power from wind, larger numbers community size wind turbines result in more people being slightly affected as opposed to just a handful of people being massively effected as they are wind very large scale wind farms. If we all want to share in the benefit of clean renewable energy, is it right to insist it is “somewhere else”?
  4. Other forms of power such as Nuclear, Gas, Waste incineration and Biomass are enough – we don’t need wind turbines. Existing nuclear stations are all nearing end of life with perhaps at least a decade until we see any replacements AND how plentiful is Uranium? The UK recently became a net importer of gas – so energy security alone would dictate gas is not a long term solution let alone climate change. If the controversy over the incinerator at Aylesford is any measure this would be probably be even less popular than wind power. Lastly, biomass is something that is talked about a lot but does it really scale?
  5. Investors are pulling out of large off shore schemes like the Thames Array, how will this project be funded? Off shore wind turbines have proven to be incredibly expensive to build and hard to maintain – present estimates run at up to 4x the cost of on shore wind. Distgen will provide funding to purchase and install the turbine and invite local residents to invest if they chose to.
  6. Wind turbines are inefficient and don’t make any profit. Efficiency numbers for wind turbines are often confused with capacity. Annual capacity is the annual generation expressed as a percentage of the theoretical maximum (ie running at 100% output) while efficiency refers to the amount of energy that a turbine can “extract” from the wind – typically around 30%. In perspective, the best of breed solar PV panels don’t exceed 20% efficiency and 10% capacity. The more important figure is annual generation as this is linked to CO2 mitigation (or offsetting) and income.
  7. Distgen and the land owner are simply out to make lots of money at the villages expense. Of course this somewhat contradicts point 6 but, most wind turbines create income for the land owner and the turbine operating company only – At Castle Farm we are inviting local investors to buy into the operating company and share in the profits. In addition an annual donation to the Parish Council will be made each year for the lifetime of the project.
  8. The wind turbine will not generate the predicted levels of output. On a 7m/s (at 45m) average annual wind speed, the manufacturers quote an annual generation of 575MWh. With a hub height of 31m the wind speed will drop to around 6.8m/s or around 530MWh. Financial predictions given at the meeting (approx £110,000 gross annual income) were based on a more conservative estimate of  only 500MWh per year.
  9. East Farleigh is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. While there are no actual designations on the area (the site is not in or near an AONB, SAC or SSSI) we recognise East Farleigh is no less (and no more) remarkable than many other areas of the Kent and the UK. However, the line of electricity pylons that traverse the site do mean that man-made artefacts are already present on site. The scale of the turbine chose (31m hub, 44.5m to tip) is appropriate against the 35m pylons. Maidstone Borough Council planners concluded the turbine would not have a significant visual impact.
  10. Would this one wind turbine open the flood gates for many more? Simply put – very unlikely. In and around East Farleigh there is not the space to install more turbines with the spatial separation required. Moreover, planners are required to judge the “cumulative impact” any proposal might cause which is designed to prevent this situation.
  11. The wind turbine will be visible from as far as Wrotham Hill. Possibly, with very good eyesight and in clear weather. Wrotham Hill is approximately 18km away. Research cited in Visual Assessment of Wind Farms: Best Practice (produced for Scottish Natural Heritage) suggests that a 60m turbine was recognised by only 10% of test subjects at a distance of 20km. Further research indicates the acuity of the human eye would limit the discernible range of a 2m diameter mast to around 20km – assuming near perfect weather conditions.
  12. Distgen is a small company and might go out of business, leaving the community with nothing. The wind turbine will not be owned by DistGen, instead it will be owned by a new local turbine operating company whose shares will be available for purchase by local investors. DistGen will receive income from the turbine service and maintenance contract. If Distgen were to disappear the local turbine company would need to secure a service contract with someone else. The wind turbine would continue to generate electricity as before.
  13. This investment is simply too risky. If Distgen was asking for investment capital up front this may be the case. However, regardless of whether you object to the scheme or not, share options will be held open for 15 months after the turbine becomes fully operational. Distgen is not asking for a penny of anyone’s money until there is at least a years worth of actual production data. We plan to produce an FSA regulated investment prospectus at a later date.
  14. We can sometimes hear cows from quite a distance – won’t the wind turbine be noisier? With what little there is written on bovine noise levels it appears the average cow will emit a moo of around 90dB. Its possible in certain quiet conditions that you may indeed hear this at some distance, however this would likely only be on very low wind speed days when the wind turbine would actually be idle. The important point is that wind turbines only make noise as a result of wind, the same wind that in turn creates an increase in ambient noise – for example when you hear trees moving in the wind you only hear those that are closest to you and not those hundreds of metres away.

For more information about the Castle Farm project click here