Britain urged to speed up wind-power plans

Britain must allow more wind farms if it is to meet its climate-change target of generating 15 percent of its energy needs from green sources, experts say.

The United Kingdom has committed to reaching that goal by 2020, but only 3 percent of its energy now comes from renewable sources like wind and solar power, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

The country is likely to miss the target unless there is massive investment in wind, wave and solar power, said Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the Committee on Climate Change.

He called for the government to "ramp up" efforts to build turbines both on land and at sea.

The average wind farm project takes more than three years to win approval, he said, and in the last year planning approval rates fell from 68 per cent to 53 per cent.

Planning permission needs to be given faster so that three times as many turbines can be installed every year, he said.

"Any changes to the planning framework should focus on reducing planning times in order that renewable electricity projects proceed as required to meet the target," Turner said in a letter to Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne.