Energy firms and MoD agree on radars

The Ministry of Defence and several energy firms have come to an agreement in which they will jointly meet the costs of upgrading expensive radar equipment. This helped break an impasse that would have derailed various key offshore wind farms leading to the highly ambitious renewable energy goal of the government hitting a brick wall.

The agreement came after officials from the energy sector got angry with the objections they were getting from the Ministry of Defence and decided to take their case to the Prime Minister. The signatories of the agreement will be the Defence secretary, Des Browne, the Business Secretary, John Hutton, and the chairperson the British Wind Energy Association, Adam Bruce.

The Ministry of Defence had refused to give approval to at the minimum four key offshore wind energy project some of which had taken years of planning and preparation on the grounds of national security. The Ministry of Defence has argued that offshore wind turbines in the direct line of sight of radar stations interferes with their accuracy and effectiveness.

Having earlier been told that there would be no objections, the energy firms hit the roof when it emerged that there were objections from the Ministry of Defence. The energy firms observed that the objection from the Ministry of Defence was going to lead to a waste of millions of sterling pounds which had been invested and would discourage new investment in the renewable energy sector. The government has recently shown a keen interest in developing the renewable energy industry.

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