The letter by seven directors of HIEIG (Stornoway Gazette February 21) makes clear that they support the major Lewis wind farm proposal and its connector, but they give no sensible reason for promoting this support.
Wind farms will not contribute to a decrease in co2 emissions in generation processes, nor produce power at a comparable cost to conventional systems. They may provide work for Arnish Point, but it is not sensible to build a facility for producing u
neconomic electricity just to set up an uneconomic facility for producing mechanical hardware.
It is not helpful to refer to these islands as a 'potential power house'; they are, in fact, islands swept by randomly intermittent winds, which at their highest speeds will only generate a very small pressure drop across a turbine blade. Therefore an inordinate amount of blade area is required to produce a paltry amount of electricity.
Further, if this is to be part of the UK Grid then an equivalent capacity of standby generation has to be kept at full steam temperature and pressure to take up the load if the wind drops.
Running the Grid is a serious matter and it would be surprising if those responsible for safeguarding the continuity of consumers supply would put much of a price on units of generation that were not guaranteed to arrive at the contracted time.
Low cost power is a first requirement for any organisation promoting the growth of businesses. It will not be achieved by designing generation systems to politicians' whims with ancient technology and with taxpayers cash.
My letter to the Stornoway Gazette three years ago recommends the way forward.
RODERICK A MACLEOD
Isle of Harris
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