With wind in our sails

The Times (February 23) reported the Prime Minister as having said that wind energy could only generate three per cent of Malta's energy needs. How he arrived at the figure of three per cent is puzzling. Surely the Prime Minister is being misinformed! For instance, Denmark currently generates about 20 per cent of its electricity through wind and plans to further increase its share of energy derived from wind.

The province of Ostfriesland, Germany, derives more than 50 per cent of its electricity from wind turbines.

The global rate of growth in wind power is currently over 30 per cent. The unit cost of wind-generated energy is decreasing dramatically (while the price of oil does the opposite). Thus, while other countries invest heavily in alternative energy, Malta's government stubbornly persists in committing the country to total dependence on fossil fuel for generating electricity.

Some time ago an application for planning permission was submitted to Mepa for a wind farm on Marfa ridge but nothing ever came of it. The annual output of one single such wind farm was projected at 55 gigawatt hours which is equivalent to about five per cent of Malta's total electricity needs.

Wind energy is now a firmly established technology that has been used successfully for decades. Turbines have become highly efficient and are fully cost effective. As to the actual investment, the usual procedure is for a company to set up a wind farm and sell the electricity to the government.

Therefore, theoretically, wind farms come free and any extra cost will depend on the price negotiated with the company for the electricity. This price will, of course, remain fixed and independent of the price of oil for the life of the wind turbine, which is 20 to 25 years. Wind farms are not permanent installations; the turbines can be removed leaving virtually no trace when new technology makes other forms of renewable energy exploitation more sustainable.

Solar power has a great potential in Malta but solar technology is still too expensive to be practicable. It must also be remembered that electricity can only be generated during daylight hours and affordable technologies for storing electricity do not yet exist. As to wind energy, we almost certainly have enough wind to generate far more than three per cent of our needs - and the technology is there and affordable.

The Prime Minister was quoted as saying that two sea areas have been identified for the creation of islands by land reclamation. Again, he must be misinformed. To reclaim a large enough island to accommodate enough turbines to supply a significant amount of energy would be astronomically expensive in our deep waters.

The possibility of offshore wind farms based on reclaimed land, as hinted at by the Prime Minister, is therefore a non-starter. Offshore wind turbines with seabed foundations are hugely expensive in the first place and they would be virtually impossible to erect owing to the depth of our surrounding waters.

The Prime Minister is quoted as referring to this question as "a dilemma... a difficult decision" in this context. The situation is, however, quite clear: land-based wind turbines are Malta's only option. Other options are either impracticable or prohibitively expensive. We simply do not have the luxury of making a choice. As things now stand, therefore, land-based wind energy is the only economically sustainable form of renewable energy open to Malta for generating its electricity.

A wind farm of 12 turbines, such as the one proposed some time ago, would have occupied somewhat less than a square mile (two square kilometres) of terrain. One square mile might sound like an awful lot of space but there is a crucial difference between a wind farm and other typical large-scale developments such as, say, a golf course or a new residential area. Whereas the entire terrain taken up by a golf course or residential area is irrevocably destroyed, the terrain which is disturbed when wind turbines are installed is negligible.

The challenge is therefore to overcome the unjustified prejudice against wind power and find space in suitable exposed parts of Malta and Gozo sufficiently far from human habitation on which an optimal number of turbines might be built.

There is no denying that land space is limited on our little islands.

On the other hand, one third of our land surface is densely populated and the remainder is relatively sparsely populated. A substantial portion of this remaining area has the advantage of being elevated, exposed to prevailing winds and virtually uninhabited.

The main obstacle to land turbines is the very serious visual intrusion consequent on the gigantic size of wind turbines.

There is no question that these leviathan structures will probably be visible from afar over much of the island. Like it or not, this is Malta's only choice if it wants to offset its total dependence on fossil fuels. The alternative to this is simply that of remaining totally dependent on fossil fuel to generate our electricity for the foreseeable future.

As long as Malta remains 100 per cent dependent on oil for its electricity generation it remains vulnerable to the damaging effect of the price of oil on the economy. Sooner or later there will come a time when fossil fuels become an unaffordable luxury and our total dependence on oil will result in economical dislocation.

Consumers will also have to put up with inexorable rises in electricity bills over the coming years. If our government had indeed been "actively looking into the matter", as suggested by the Prime Minister, then Malta's first step into renewables, in the form of our first land-based wind farm, would have been taken long ago.