4 News CEREDIGION COUNTY Kelvin Mason


COUNCIL has rejected the ‘Green Balls Award’ it was awarded by satirical news magazine Private Eye. As part of its regular Rotten


Boroughs feature, which keeps a watchful eye on the conduct and performance of our local authorities, Private Eye makes a series of annual awards, none of them positive or complimentary. There are, for example, awards for nepotism, whitewash and complacency. The Green Balls Award is made to the council which Private Eye judges has made the biggest cock- up on environmental sustainability or which has perhaps used greenwash - ‘disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public image’.


GONE WITH THE WIND According to Private Eye, in 2010,


Ceredigion Council spent £48,000 on a 60’ tall wind turbine to supply electricity to its, then, new offices in Aberystwyth. Herald readers may well remember


the turbine, seemingly a variant of the Darrieus rotor. Actually, there were two turbines,


with a twin machine supposed to provide power to the Welsh government building. The council turbine, at least,


never worked properly, according to Private Eye, which goes onto claim that last year the council paid £2,720 to dismantle it. Then, it was put it up for sale on eBay ‘with a starting price of 99p – and received no bids.’ At the time of installation, even


those of us with only a passing knowledge of wind power questioned the siting of the turbines. In 2013, Paul Burrell from wind


power company Anemos, based in Machynlleth, told the press: “I think the problem is quite simple - it’s been put in the wrong place. It’s very important with any wind turbine to ensure they have unobstructed access to wind from all directions. Unfortunately, the Welsh Government’s turbine was located in a valley two miles from the sea. It was also located next to tall buildings, so even if there was a strong wind, it was displaced by the time it reached the turbine.” This statement obviously holds for the council’s turbine too. In 2014, an admittedly renewable


energy hostile Daily Mail reported that the Welsh Government building turbine would be scrapped as it had ‘generated just £5 of electricity a month’. The Mail claimed ‘the turbine


was producing an average of just 33 kilowatt hours of energy a month, worth £5.28. At this rate, the newspaper report estimated, it would take 757


kelvin.mason@herald.email


years to recover the installed cost of the turbine. With the manufacturer, Quiet Revolution, reportedly having gone bust, it was decided to remove the turbine. According to the Mail, Quiet Revolution had warned civil servants that their site was unsuitable. The Herald notes that a wind


energy company using the name ‘quietrevolution’ continues to trade as VWT Power Ltd, specialising in Qr6 vertical axis wind turbines, very similar if not identical in appearance to those removed from Aberystwyth. Why neither the Welsh


Government nor the council were consulting Wales-based wind and renewable energy companies remains an unanswered question.


EXEMPLARY CARBON MANAGEMENT


Responding to Private Eye’s


Green Balls Award, the council told us that the vertical axis wind turbine was installed when Canolfan Rheidol was constructed in 2009, confirming that a similar wind turbine was also erected at the Welsh Government Offices. In 2014, the council’s turbine failed and tenders were sought for its removal. The company with the lowest quotation completed the work early last year. This company did briefly advertise the turbine on eBay, but were instructed by the council to remove it. Cllr Alun Williams, Cabinet


Member for Environmental Services, Assets and Carbon Management, commented: “More recently, Canolfan Rheidol has become an exemplary building in terms of carbon management. The council has installed an array of 199 photo-voltaic solar cells on the roof. There is also an extended biomass district energy heating system, which heats not only Canolfan Rheidol but also Plas Crug Leisure Centre, Ysgol Penweddig and the Welsh Government building. A new energy-efficient and cost-effective evaporative cooling system is also in place along with rainwater harvesting. “We are also working with Severn


Wye Energy on reducing the electricity used by our staff within the building. All these schemes put together save over 300 tons of carbon every year as well as a substantial amount of money, £95,000 a year in the case of the biomass scheme alone.”


‘GREEN BLING’ The installation of the turbines by


the council and Welsh Government back in 2009 corresponded with a period when poorly-informed organisations in both the public and


THE HERALD FRIDAY JANUARY 20 2017


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Council doesn’t want ‘Green Balls’


Cllr Alun Williams: ‘Canolfan Rheidol has become an exemplary building in terms of carbon management’


private sector were particularly prone to adorning building projects with ‘green bling’, also known as eco-bling. This meant them choosing ostentatious renewable technologies rather than, for instance, effective but invisible energy conservation measures, particularly insulation and draught proofing. Noting the tendency throughout


many societies to choose the spectacular over the sensible on diverse fronts, London architect Gus Alexander wrote on green bling at the time: “The steps that anyone can take, and where every little bit really does help, is to stop all that expensive energy leaking out in the first place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look very glamorous when you try to show your friends what you’ve done.” The Royal Academy of Engineering


has stated that microgeneration that fails to produce much electricity but looks green, or ‘eco-bling’, will do little to stop climate change. The fashion for ‘eco-bling’ corresponded with a trend for any development of any sort of building to any standard to be prefixed by ‘eco’, as with the crumpled steel studios at Aberystwyth University.


BALLS TO PRIVATE EYE To be fair to Ceredigion Council,


in 2017, The Herald notes that the wind turbine was installed under


the previous administration. In their defence, though perhaps poorly informed, that administration did have the courage to try something innovative. Few of us have the temperament


to be pioneers, it seems, especially in the field of renewable energy where government support has vacillated erratically over the years, undermining public confidence. However, those people in


Ceredigion and beyond who have grasped the nettle and installed well- designed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, solar water heating panels, community scale wind turbines, and biomass fuelled heating systems such as pellet boilers instead of tried and tested but environmentally disastrous oil-fired central heating, have reaped the financial benefits and made their ‘every little helps’ contribution to mitigating climate change. Of course, those who invested


probably far less money in proper insulation and draught-proofing will undoubtedly have done relatively even better.


Failing government schemes like


the much hyped Green Deal aside, it is still well worth every home-owner and landlord considering improving their building in these simple but very cost effective ways. It may also be worth checking out the Domestic Renewable Heat


Incentive (Domestic RHI). This is a government financial incentive to promote the use of renewable heat, which helps the UK reduce its carbon emissions. The Herald understands a number


of Ceredigion residents are already warm as toast and significantly better off via this incentive. Perhaps Private Eye should cut


the current Ceredigion Council some slack. It is true that innovation will always involve making mistakes – not to say that many mistakes can’t be avoided if you seek out good advice, often available locally! And recent effective technological innovations indicate that the council has learned valuable lessons. If Private Eye really want to make


a Green Balls Award, it must surely go to central rather than local government for the complete cock-up that it has made over decades in not conserving energy and not making the transition to renewables. We currently face an energy future


reliant on the expensive, dangerous, environmentally questionable and unpopular technologies of shale gas fracking and nuclear power. And to Ceredigion Council we say:


“Chin up, it could have been worse, you could have been Carmarthenshire.” Carmarthenshire Council’s CEO


won Private Eye’s ‘Shit of the Year’ award.


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