Published: Thursday, 4th June, 2009 9:00am

Letter: Wind power is the answer; it"s free

I write in response to Ken Mann"s letter (Chronicle, May 28) which suggested that power stations need to be run on standby to cope with the intermittency of wind power.

At the low proportion of the UK"s energy supply that is currently generated by wind farms (approx 2%), the intermittency of wind is really not an issue.

This would need to reach more like 20% of overall supply before this becomes a big consideration and the national grid is already well set up to cope with intermittency - the demand on the grid constantly changes throughout the day.

Wind is a free, readily available resource, whereas fossil fuels reserves are running out and nuclear power remains a ludicrously expensive option.

Wind energy can and should form an important part of our future energy supply and the call to increase renewable energy generation in Reading should be applauded.

Dan Fernbank

Caversham

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