(Image: Larry MacDougal/Rex Features)

Why is wind power derided as subsidised, inefficient and uncompetitive when the opposite is true, ask Jérôme Guillet and John Evans

ATTEMPTS to discredit wind power often claim that wind turbines need to be subsidised. A piece in British newspaper The Daily Telegraph last month asserted that each wind turbine in the UK receives, on average, £138,000 in subsidies a year, and that as a result wind-power investors are coining it hand over fist at the taxpayer’s expense.

So are wind farms subsidised? In the sense of direct government support, very rarely. What …