The non-profit Renewable Energy Foundation — known for its firm stance against on-shore wind farms —warns that “political enthusiasm for wind power” does not reflect the high-cost and inefficiencies of large-scale wind farms in the United Kingdom.

While the UK Government recently released its Renewable Energy Strategy, which advocates wind power as an important component in its plan to meet renewable energy mandates set by the European Union, the REF says that relying on wind power to meet a large part of the UK’s energy needs would be extremely costly in light of the carbon savings that would be achieved.

The study notes that during winter, when demand for energy is the highest, wind farms are unable to produce large amounts of power. During times of low-output from wind farms, “conventional fossil fuel plants would need to be switched on and off as many as 23 times a month”, which would impair efficiency and reduce emissions savings.

The REF study also aims to debunk certain claims put forth by the industry. “The British Wind Energy Association sometimes claims that wind produces power for 80 to 95% of the time, but the number of hours wind produces some power is irrelevant, what matters is how much power for these hours and how much it fluctuates hour to hour,” says the REF.

Ultimately, the REF concludes that wind power works better on a small scale, and should not be promoted as realistic alternative to fossil fuel plants.

For more information about the REF paper, which has been published in the journal Energy Policy and is available for purchase, see: http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/139