Jonathan Renouf

A week ago we published a “to scale” visualisation of what a wind farm might look like, as viewed from Corbiere. It was produced to industry standards, which are well established as these images are a requirement of the application process for new wind farms. However, it is important to note that because we are nowhere near the stage of a formal application to build a wind farm, the image is just an approximation, based on some realistic assumptions about turbine size, the likely arrangement of the turbines and the size of the wind farm.

Clearly, a wind farm would be visible from the SW and west coasts of the island and I know that for some people this is a concern. However, it is worth putting in context. It is already possible to see a wind farm from Jersey’s coast anywhere from Noirmont around to Grosnez – the St Brieuc wind farm in French waters that comes up to our maritime border. Here are some pictures to prove it.

St Brieuc wind farm as seen from L’Etacq

And from Beauport

From Corbiere

From the Pinnacle

What’s more, the French government has committed to building 40GW of new wind farm capacity over the next 35 years. It is highly like that some of that new capacity will extend into waters to the west of Jersey.

So the choice is not between whether or not we have a wind farm visible from Jersey. That has already happened, and the visual footprint is very likely to extend as the French develop their plans further. The real choice is, do we at least gain some benefit from the appearance of wind turbines around our coast? We can have visible wind turbines and no benefit to Jersey, or visible turbines with significant economic and other benefits for the island.

Personally, I think we should seize the opportunity that nature has offered us: we have an excellent wind regime and shallow seas which make a wind farm a viable proposition. The potential economic advantages of a wind farm for the island are huge. Let us at least investigate the idea further.