Ukraine built more onshore wind turbines in past year than England

theguardian.com:

Ukraine has completed more onshore wind turbines than England since it was occupied by Russian soldiers – despite the UK’s government’s promise to relax restrictions on onshore wind farms.

Only two onshore wind turbines have been installed in England since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, generating 1 megawatt (MW) of electricity in the Staffordshire village of Keele.

Ukraine’s Tyligulska wind power plant, meanwhile, the first to be built in a conflict zone, has begun generating enough clean electricity to power around 200,000 homes just 60 miles from the frontline in the southern region of Mykolaiv, with 19 turbines providing an installed capacity of 114 MW.

Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change secretary, said: “This extraordinary revelation is a terrible indictment of Rishi Sunak and his staggering failure to end the onshore wind ban.

“Even governments fighting for their very survival can get on and build the clean energy infrastructure needed to tackle the cost of living crisis, the energy security crisis, and the climate crisis with more urgency than the Tories can muster.”

No 10 promised last year to dismantle an effective ban on onshore wind farms in England, which was put in place in 2015 by tightening planning restrictions in the National Planning Policy Framework. However, the government is yet to make any changes and campaigners believe that a rebellion of backbench Tory MPs threatens to pile pressure on ministers to make only modest tweaks to the framework, which would continue to hold back the rollout of English wind farms.

The ban on onshore wind, which is the cheapest source of electricity, is estimated to have cost UK billpayers £800m over the past winter when millions were plunged into fuel