I thought I’d add some real experience to the witless and wandering debate.

Seven years ago my neighbour installed a wind turbine in a not brilliant position (for wind). It has had a few problems, needed a few repairs and the usual regular maintenance.

Being small I did not expect much from it, big wind turbines are more productive - four times the output for twice the blade length.

It is 9m tall, an average telegraph pole height. Now for the money. It cost my neighbour £22,000 installed.

It is meant to be replaced in 20 years. If you add for the maintenance and deduct for the fact that not everything will need replacing, that means every kwh costs her 16p to produce. She gets 5p kwh from the government in ‘ROC’s - a tariff they plan to drop. My neighbour is evidently subsidising us not the other way round. I did survey all the neighbours and the visitors on a bank holiday for objections and there were none. The turbine is used as a landmark for visitors and a weather vane.

We need power and it is satisfying to be able to produce your own. A landscape reflecting self-reliance is an optimistic landscape. That is different to wind farms whose output is profit for a company and energy for the UK. Our historic landscape was shaped by self reliance: buildings made of local stone, sheltered from our weather, close to water supplies and productive land, a network of paths and roads to connect a pattern of communities clustered sensibly near rivers, ports, markets, travel nodes, spiritual sites.

Adding local electricity generation for local use matches this ancient pattern. Today we happily depend on the national grid and other services but we feel in our bones that they are not secure.

UK government is attacking renewables, although it is economic and geopolitical lunacy. The grid and regulations absurdly inflate costs.

If energy producers got a reasonable proportion of what the customer pays (instead of 5p out of 16p per kwh) the need for grants would disappear.

We only have until January to install before the UK grants evaporate.

Welsh government has passed a planning act allowing big renewables to install without going through the local planning process. The opportunity for local people to power themselves is under attack from all directions There is urgent need to grasp this. We do need to debate, but it should be around finance, place, ownership, storage, distribution and use of our power. For upcoming meetings and tours on community power contact me: vicky@ecocymru.org / 01239 820971.

VICKY MOLLER

Plaid Cymru candidate for mid and west Wales