This section of the website will document some of the issues that have been raised throughout this communication process. We would like to be able to report our responses back to you, as it is likely that similar questions will arise. We hope we have helped to address your concerns, but please feel free to contact us with any further questions or comments.
1. Will there be a lot of construction traffic going through our villages?
The access route that has been proposed for the site will follow Sewstern Lane from the A1 south to an unpaved track leading on to the wind farm site. We have discussed this route option with Lincolnshire County Council (South Kesteven and Sleaford Highways), the County Council Right of Way Officer and the Highways Agency. This option will provide us with the best access in terms of transporting the turbine components to the site and will also avoid impacting on the road networks of smaller communities, such as Long Bennington.
Trucks approaching from the north will avoid Long Bennington by taking the A1 down to Great Gonerby roundabout, turn around and access the site from the south.
2. Do wind turbines scare horses, cows or sheep?
Wind farming is popular with farmers, because their land can continue to be used for growing crops or grazing livestock. Wind turbines normally do not disturb livestock. For example Delabole Wind Farm in Cornwall incorporates a riding school and a stud farm within the site. The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) issued a document on this subject called
Wind energy and horses.
3. Are wind farms built with taxpayers' money? How does the ROCs system work?
There is no government subsidy for building wind farms. The support mechanism, known as Renewable Obligations Certificates (ROC), is only available for electricity that wind farms have already produced and supplied to utilities.
Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) are issued by Ofgem, the organisation that regulates the electricity and gas markets in Great Britain. ROCs have been designed to increase the profitability of renewable energy generation in order to help meet national and regional renewable energy targets.
A Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) is a green certificate issued to an accredited generator for eligible renewable electricity generated within the United Kingdom and supplied to customers within the United Kingdom by a licensed electricity supplier. One ROC is issued for each megawatt hour (MWh) of eligible renewable output generated.
The Renewables Obligation, the Renewables Obligation Scotland and the Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation are designed to incentivise renewable generation into the electricity generation market. These schemes were introduced by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Scottish Executive and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment respectively and are administered by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (whose day to day functions are performed by Ofgem).
4. Who owns Infinergy?
Infinergy is a full subsidiary of Koop Duurzame Energie (KDE) of the Netherlands, a renewable energy business developing onshore wind projects across Europe. KDE is the renewables division of Koop Holding, a large Dutch construction, engineering and contracting enterprise, involved in major international development projects.
In 2000 a former director of Koop Tjuchem, the civil and hydraulic engineering division of the Koop Group, made public accusations with respect to Koop Tjuchems involvement in fraud and a cartel between other Dutch road building companies. Koop Tjuchem was at that time still part of the Koop Group. As a result of these public accusations the Dutch government commissioned a wide reaching inquiry (named the Parliamentary Construction Inquiry). This inquiry investigated all the major Dutch construction companies, including Koop Tjuchem. The outcome of the inquiry in 2005 was that almost all construction companies charged with fraud were found guilty. The NMA (Dutch Cartel Authority) sentenced the whole civil engineering sector. At the end Koop Tjuchem was found to be the relatively less fined road building company in the whole country, although it was one of the biggest construction companies in the Netherlands.
The name of Koop Tjuchem, and with it the whole Koop Group, was associated to the affair, because of the unhappy start of the allegations and inquiry. Neither Nacap nor KDE were involved in the inquiries. Since this Construction Inquiry the Koop Group went trough a major reorganisation. Part of this reorganisation was a new strategic focus on renewable energy and the construction of pipelines and telecom and electricity cables. Koop Tjuchem has been sold.
One of the key companies in the Koop Group is Nacap. They operate worldwide – in the UK as well - as managing contractor, providing a wide range of multidisciplinary solutions for the transport of oil, gas, water, electricity and data and on energy issues in the whole. Nacap employ some 3,000 people worldwide and achieve a yearly turnover of approximately 500 million euros. One of the ongoing projects in the UK is the construction of a major new gas pipeline in South Wales. Nacap is involved in the detailed design and construction of a new gas pipeline by Transco, from Milford Haven to Aberdulais in South Wales. This pipeline, with a length of 128 km, will provide a link between the new third party gas supply points and LNG terminal at Milford Haven and the existing pipeline transmission system. Of course and fully needless to say Nacap was checked by Transco on the Cartel issue before getting this big contract. In the UK Nacap and Infinergy are working closely together. We anticipate significant input from Nacap in the design and construction of our wind development projects in the UK.
5. If constructed, what turbines would be used on the site?
At this time, Infinergy have not confirmed the model of turbines to be used at the wind farm site, as this will be subject to availability. We are not proposing to use second-hand turbines or older models, but will use new, state of the art machines.
Our assessments of landscape and noise will be based on a generic turbine model, with a maximum blade tip height of 125m.
6. How will the neighbouring residences be impacted by the visual impact and noise of the wind farm?
We have noted your interest in the recent installation of the anemometer mast, and some concerns with regard to visual impact and noise associated with the proposed wind turbines.
Now that the anemometer mast is up and running, we are able to start monitoring the wind speeds and wind direction at the site. This will also allow us to conduct our noise monitoring to build up an idea of what baseline noise is currently like in the area. This monitoring methodology is based on best guidance and our consultation with the Council. Once we have collected and analysed the noise data we will be able to predict the impact of the wind turbines and present this information to the Council and the public through our Environmental Statement (report with results of Environmental Impact Assessment surveys).
With regards to visual impact, we are also currently undertaking a visual impact assessment based on best practice guidance and from discussions with the Council. We hope to present this information, such as photomontages from key viewpoints, at the public exhibitions scheduled for October.
7. Will property value decline by having a wind farm nearby?
We have had requests regarding potential impacts on property prices. The most recent studies into the effects of turbines on property prices have concluded that wind turbines do not adversely affect property prices. We can advise you to look at several websites for further information on this issue:
• www.bwea.com/media/news/070328.html
• www.crest.org/articles/static/1/binaries/wind_online_final.pdf
• www.yes2wind.com/42_faq.html
8. What about the community benefit scheme?
We appreciate your suggestions regarding the community benefit fund, and we will be tracking all suggestions that come in. We hope to be able to help provide support to the local communities in particular in relation to environmental projects and we are aiming to gather feedback on ideas from all the surrounding communities including both Allington and Long Bennington. We will welcome all suggestions and hope to make this a positive contribution to the area.
So far, some of the suggestions we have received include:
• Environmental projects for schools;
• Helping local organisations and institutions to achieve sustainable-standards;
• General community projects;
• Funding for youth schemes and village halls;
• Community investment in the project to provide engagement and interest; and
• Referring to Parish Councils to provide advice on local needs
9. Are local residents being kept informed about the wind farm proposal?
Some people have pointed out the need to keep the local communities informed of the wind farm proposal and its development. This is one of our key objectives and we are striving to keep all local residents informed through a variety of mechanisms such as printed booklet, newspaper articles, a freephone number, website and email address. We are currently in the process of producing a newsletter, which we will be sending out to all local residents. We will also be installing public displays in various community locations and will be hosting public exhibitions in October.
We would like to ensure that nobody feels “left out” or uninformed, so we appreciate hearing from you and hope that we can avoid any further “information gaps.”
We have received feedback on the need to include a site location map on the website. This has been posted on the homepage and we hope this will clarify any misunderstanding about the scale and location of the proposed development
As previously mentioned, Infinergy are planning to hold public exhibitions in October 2007 in Allington and Long Bennington. We will be advertising the dates and locations for these events widely and hope for a strong interest from the local community. It should be noted that we plan to submit our Environmental Statement and Planning Application to SKDC in October 2007, and at this point the Council will hold a formal public consultation period where members of the public will be able to comment on the Planning Application.
We hope to present some of the results of our assessments and surveys at the Public Exhibitions, for example photomontages showing how the turbines may appear in the landscape. All of our results will be presented in our Environmental Statement, which will be available for public viewing at the Council Offices after the Planning Application is submitted.
10. In the questionnaire, I can't click multiple concerns. Why is that?
Some of you have raised concern in regards to Question 5b of the questionnaire, which asks you to “please tell us which issue you are most concerned about”. It was pointed out to us that only one concern could be ticked, but we can assure you that we are not trying to build up any misleading statistics. We have also struggled with posing this question, because we were concerned that some respondents may put ALL the issues as important, which would not help us to focus on the issues of key concern. This is also why we have included question 5c, which allows people to further elaborate on their concern and to provide us with qualitative information (such as local particularities), which is of utmost importance to us.
Our website is new and we are trying to get as much information up as quickly as possible. Please note that a lot of the environmental results will not be posted until all results are in and finalised, which is not expected to be until October.
11. Will local economy benefit from having a wind farm nearby?
We appreciate all suggestions for local businesses and contractors, as we are keen to work with the local community and appreciate your support and advice. We will look into these companies to ascertain whether any of these can be used for Thackson's Well Wind Farm. We would be very happy to see you at our public exhibitions to discuss your ideas, and should you have any further suggestions please do not hesitate to contact us again.
12. Will local energy costs go down because of the wind farm?
Some of you have asked whether the local area will benefit from lower energy costs and be able to use the energy generated by the wind farm. It will not be possible to supply individual houses directly with the electricity produced from the proposed renewable energy scheme, although we hope that this will change in the near future. The electricity from the scheme will be fed into the National Grid, which in turn could be purchased from your electricity provider. How much your provider charges is not in our control but we believe that with more demand for green electricity, it will one day become cheaper than electricity produced by conventional methods (i.e. the burning of fossil fuels).
13. Does the UK have sufficient wind to make wind farms work?
It is a well known fact that the UK is one of the windiest countries in Europe and as a result it is estimated that a wind turbine in the UK would typically be producing energy for 70-85% of the year (Source:
BWEA). The average wind speed at Thackson’s Well at 45m above ground level (the wind turbine hub heights are expected to be at around 80m high) is estimated to be 6.4 m/s (14 mph). If correlated to hub height, the site is expected to be able to deliver almost 7m/s. In order to seek reassurance, Infinergy has erected a met mast on site which measures the wind at 80m. The met mast will gather wind data for one year and will provide the developer with accurate on site data (Source:
BERR Wind Speed Database).
14. There is so much industrial pollution and energy consumption in the developing world, are wind turbines in the UK really going to make a difference to climate change?
There is evidence that immediate actions can to overcome environmental threats! In the recent past, many countries have banned ozone-depleting CFCs in spray cans, the UK has banned the toxic pesticide DDT, international treaties are in place to help reduce acid rain and countries around the world are working towards the preservation of endangered species. There are things we can change in our daily lives and on a regional and national level in order to improve the global environment. The UK should strive to set an example for the rest of the world in terms of setting and achieving high environmental standards and aiming to reduce the effects of global warming.
15. How much energy actually goes into the manufacture, construction and operation of wind power schemes? Can this energy ever be re-captured?
16. Why don’t we put all the wind turbines out to sea?
We will need a mix of both onshore and offshore wind energy to meet the UK’s challenging targets on climate change. By 2012, emissions must be reduced to 12.5% below the levels set in 1990. At present, onshore farms are more economical to develop; offshore wind farms take longer to build because the sea is inherently a more hostile environment. If offshore farms were the only form of wind generation it would make meeting our renewable energy targets very difficult.
17. How long do wind turbines last?
Modern wind turbines are designed to operate for more than 20 years and at the end of their working life, the area at Thackson’s Well can be restored at low financial and environmental costs.
During the wind farm’s lifetime, some minor maintenance may be required.
18. How big are wind turbines?
The proposed turbines at Thackson’s Well Wind Farm will be no higher than 125 metres (blade tip height), with a maximum rotor diameter of 90 metres. A landscape and visual assessment is currently underway to study the potential visibility of the wind farm from the surrounding area. More information regarding the visibility of the wind farm will be available at our public exhibitions in October.