The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has estimated that the development of 45GW of onshore wind farms would take up 2.1% of the UK’s total land prompting calls to scale the renewable energy technology.
The UK government has recently pledged to support the upscaling of the onshore wind farm industry and supports its growth as a means to generate sufficient amounts of green energy in a bid to create a carbon neutral grid by 2035.
The current installed capacity of onshore wind generation stands at around 15GW, however with the overturning of the de facto ban on wind generation today, there is now an opportunity to scale this energy generation source further.
Contrary to beliefs that onshore wind farms take up substantial amounts of land in the UK, much like the false claims Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made on solar farms taking up large amounts of agricultural land, the ECIU has disclosed that onshore wind farms actually take up minimal space.
The government previously toyed with the idea of increasing its onshore wind generation target by 2035 to 45GW – a significant increase on the 15GW already installed. The ECIU estimated that to achieve this target, based on data indicating that each onshore farm can provide 9MW of power from each square kilometre, this would require around 5,000 square kilometres of space. This is around 2.1% of the total land in the UK.
The ECIU stated that the turbines themselves stand on a very small part of a wind farm’s land, around 1%, leaving 99% of the area free for farming or nature and wildlife. In doing so, there are opportunities to boost natural wildlife around the wind farms and support agricultural practices with grazing opportunities.
On this basis, 99% of the land around the wind farms would be free to be used for various practices including agriculture. In doing so, a total of 50 square kilometres, or 5,000 hectares, would be occupied by turbines, the ECIU claim.
“The real risk to the UK’s food security is climate change and the record price of gas. Farmers and families have been feeling these effects through food bills at the checkout and through record farm bills for energy and gas-based fertilisers. This year’s drought left many crops withering in the fields,” said Matt Williams, land analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.
“Onshore wind is cheap, popular with the public, and requires very little land. In fact, this is such a tiny fraction of the UK’s land, that it will have no real impact on other land uses such as farming. It can also support food production by providing secure revenue streams to help keep struggling farmers afloat.”
The UK’s overall pipeline for onshore wind generation pipeline grew by 4GW in the past twelve months, RenewableUK said, bringing the total capacity of planned onshore wind projects in the UK to 37GW.
RenewableUK’s data also showcased that only 0.34GW had gone fully operational in the last 12 months. Despite this, the amount of capacity either under construction or consented to in the UK increased by 1.1GW to 6.8GW – a substantial increase on previous years.
Should all projects be developed in the pipeline, the UK would have 29.8GW of onshore wind capacity operational by the end of 2030. This could increase to 34GW by the end of 2031.