"Windfarm Wars" at Den Brook

A community-powered wind farm - and its opponents - is investigated on the BBC2 documentary Wind Wars (viewable on iPlayer). The developers for the project, near North Tawton in West Devon, are RES (Renewable Energy Systems Ltd), and RES development director Rachel Ruffle explains more about it in this video:

She says a lots about how they go about developing windfarms, also telling some of the things that the documentary doesn't. They take a lot of things into account when choosing a wind farm site: the wind resource; distance from houses; impact that it might have on the environment. A big part of this is the background noise surveys, looking at how much noise each turbine generates, and how that will be heard by different houses around the wind farm, to make sure that there is no noise nuisance. They have lots of community consultations: door-to-door involvement, public exhibitions, school visits, public meetings. The general feedback from the community was very positive; and the exhibitions they gauged opinion by surveys, and the majority were in favour. There have been two public enquiries, and the project has been closely scrutinised and every time been given the thumbs up.

There have been a number of legal challenges to the consent on this project, mainly down to the concerns of one individual; otherwise, the windfarm could be up and running and generating green electricity. The RES view is that, on balance, the Den Brook wind farm is a good choice and that we should get on and build this wind farm.

Find out more at the Den Brook Website www.den-brook.co.uk or on their Facebook page facebook.com/denbrookwindfarm.