“Wind power has become a very serious business,” he says. “Fifteen years ago, it looked like the preserve of a few enthusiasts, but you can see it’s turned into a global business. We have moneymen knocking on the door all the time now. We use a German company as a major supplier. When I first met them 15 years ago, they had 60 people; today, they have 11,000 employees around the world. And the technology has changed massively — the turbines are much softer variable-speed machines with no gearboxes that absorb the energy. It’s a very sympathetic engineering principle: working with the wind, not fighting it.”

If Vince has his way, the entire country — if not the entire world — will soon be doing the same: working with the wind, not fighting it.

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