From an article by the BBC, as wind farms expand, some can accidentally “steal” each others’ wind – causing worries over some countries’ energy transition to net zero.

The article looks at the offshore situation but there are obvious parallels for our situation locally.

Simply put, as the spinning turbines of a wind farm take energy from the wind, they create a wake and slow the wind beyond the wind farm. This wake can stretch more than 100km (62 miles) for very large, dense offshore wind farms, under certain weather conditions. (Though more typically, the wakes extend for tens of kilometres, according to researchers). If the wind farm is built upwind of another wind farm, it can reduce the downwind producer’s energy output by as much as 10% or more, studies suggest.

This issue is gaining attention and is even leading to international disputes as wind farms in one country’s territory steal wind from another country’s territory. Incidentally, this helps to explain why turbine noise, particularly Excessive Amplitude Modulation (EAM), can travel so far.

The Telegraph also published an article (paywalled) covering this topic, stating:

To ensure wind theft doesn’t blow him off course, Miliband recently commissioned a national study led by Manchester University that will establish a proven method for calculating the wake effect, how it impacts revenues and how to prevent or resolve neighbourly disputes.

Given this knowledge, how could Scout Moor 2 ever get the go ahead? Depending on the wind direction and the much larger turbines, it is likely that the new wind farm could severely impact the existing wind farm. We wonder whether MEAG, the current owners and operators of Scout Moor I, have considered this? Of course, since they can get paid more to switch off, perhaps this isn’t something they find overly concerning?

We knew a long time ago that this might be an issue for large wind farms like Scout Moor, but even we didn’t predict how big an issue this could become. And it’s not just a commercial issue of increasing disputes between countries and operators. These insurmountable problems demonstrate that wind energy can never replace reliable fossil fuel or nuclear energy in the UK given the shortage of suitable land for development.