Following a planning crackdown, new onshore wind developments have been effectively prohibited in England for more than seven years. The government is now considering providing money off of their energy bills to those who want to host turbines in their area in exchange for the rules being relaxed.
Market Weighton, a small town in East Yorkshire, is surrounded by rolling hills that are .ted with wind turbines.
Ellis Jacklin, a resident of the town's periphery, can see a number of them from his garden.
The East Riding of Yorkshire has 226 wind turbines, the most of any region in England, according to trade group RenewableUK.
While some locals have previously voiced their vocal opposition to new onshore wind developments, Ellis is in favor of them.
The 29-year-old has firsthand experience with the potential advantages of this renewable energy source's low cost.
He participates in a program run by the energy provider Octopus that gives customers in three areas with nearby wind turbines, including Market Weighton, discounts.
The government is investigating whether the concept could be implemented more widely so that locals who are content with wind turbines can gain from them directly.
Customers who have signed up for the Octopus program receive a 20% discount on their electricity bill when their neighborhood turbine is operating and a 50% discount when it is particularly windy.
Ellis, a project engineer, has saved about £200 as a result of the initiative since January of last year.
According to Ellis, the savings have made a significant difference as the nation is currently experiencing a crisis caused by rising costs of living, including energy.
In addition to saving a little money, he adds, "it's helping the environment.". The decision is obvious.
According to Octopus, depending on their energy usage, customers have saved an average of more than £100 annually through the program, but some have saved as much as £400.
According to a government survey conducted last year, 78 percent of people support onshore wind energy, but only 43 percent said they would welcome a wind farm in their neighborhood.
According to Ellis, providing energy bill discounts could persuade more residents to support the construction of new wind turbines in their neighborhood.
He claims that there is a significant push toward renewable energy. And when someone can say, "There's a wind turbine spinning near me, and when that's moving I get money off," I believe that this really drives the point home.
However, Sarah McMonagle from CPRE, the Countryside Charity, is worried about the idea and claims that developments with support from the community "don't need bribes.".
When it comes to renewable energy, Ms. McMonagle's organization believes rooftop solar and offshore wind should get more attention than onshore turbines because they are more widely used. She also claims that her organization supports moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible.
The local community must be involved in the development of new onshore wind projects, and they must take landscape preservation into consideration.
The company only supports the construction of turbines where people want them, emphasizes Zoisa North-Bond, chief executive of Octopus' energy generation division.
According to her, the notion of providing bill reductions to communities that reside close to wind farms has gained popularity. Customers in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and Caerphilly, south Wales, in addition to Market Weighton, are also eligible for the discounts, which are oversubscribed in all three locations.
With about 2,800 households signed up as of right now, it's a fairly small-scale initiative. Octopus, however, intends to broaden the initiative and hopes to have at least 1,000 turbines installed throughout the UK by the end of the decade.
However, there are some obstacles. According to Ms. North-Bond, it can take years to connect a turbine to the power grid, and the current planning regulations in England make it very difficult to construct new onshore wind farms.
The government tightened regulations in 2015, restricting applications for the construction of turbines to sites that have been specifically designated for development in blueprints created by local councils. Local communities had to support proposals as well.
As a result of the changes, fewer planning applications were submitted.
Although projects would still require local support, the government promised to relax some of these restrictions in December, including the requirement that new turbines be built on pre-designated land.
The best way to gauge local opinion is currently being examined during a consultation that will last until April. It is also looking for opinions on how communities that want to host turbines can directly profit from them.
Some Conservative MPs are already in favor of providing discounts to residents who are willing to live close to wind turbines.
A group of Tory backbenchers argued that this might encourage people to host renewable energy projects in a recent report.
The report's recommendations call for putting new onshore wind projects up for a local vote.
For the duration of the project, it proposes a 100% discount on energy bills for residents who live within one mile of a proposed site, with smaller discounts of 50% and 25% for those who live within three and four miles, respectively.
This, according to the group, would discourage developers from choosing locations close to populated areas, reducing the disruption and visual impact on locals.
The chair of the committee that wrote the report, the former business secretary Dame Andrea Leadsom, intends to meet with government ministers to go over the recommendations. She thinks they might be popular across the board, even with Conservative MPs who have been worried about the effects of wind farms in their local area.
According to her, "in recent years, we've seen a lot of people become far keener on seeing much more renewable energy in their area." The "rocketing" cost of energy and a desire to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels are both contributing to these changing views, she says.
However, not everyone is persuaded back in East Yorkshire.
Mike Padgett resides in Sancton, a village on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds that is popular with walkers, just a short distance from Market Weighton.
There are 11 wind turbines about a mile from his home, and he has previously participated in neighborhood campaigns to prevent the construction of more.
"Our village has many footpaths, and some of these turbines were almost 20 yards away from the footpath," he claims.
They are a significant industrial eyesore in the wrong places. We simply felt that it wasn't the right place in a small town like ours.
Mike, 70, is concerned that plans to loosen planning requirements for onshore wind farms will result in the approval of more turbines, despite opposition from some of the people who live closest to them.
He claims that having money taken out of his bills would "help soften the impact" of the existing wind turbines and could be a just way to pay the locals.
However, he is leery of the notion that developers might use discounts to influence people, and he wouldn't be convinced to support the construction of more wind turbines if they did.
He declares, "If I could do away with coal, oil, and gas tomorrow.". "But not if it means living surrounded by wind turbines.
Thomas Mason provided additional reporting and video production.
