Wind farms are not actually very efficient afaik, I used to have investment in them but they are mostly reliant on government hand outs . The real simple way for 'free energy' is water, much lower maintaince and controllable where as a storm is not. The water considerations are relatively inert but also powerful.
Tidal power for example, the severn channel has one of the largest ranged extremes in the world which equates to a lot of power within the region of powering a large part of mainland uk. If you are going to build massive anything do that
Severn Barrage Feasability Study
The key conclusions of the feasibility study are:
• a tidal power scheme in the Severn estuary could cost as much as £34billion, and is high cost and high risk in comparison to other ways
of generating low-carbon electricity;
• a scheme is unlikely to attract the necessary private investment in current
circumstances, and would require the public sector to own much of the cost and risk;
• over their 120 year lifetime, Severn tidal power schemes could in some circumstances play a cost-effective role in meeting our long term
energy targets. But in most cases other renewables (e.g. wind) and nuclear power represent better value. Moreover as a Severn scheme could not be constructed in time to contribute to the UK’s 2020
renewable energy target, the case to build a scheme in the immediate term is weak;
•the scale and impact of a scheme would be unprecedented in an environmentally designated area, and there is significant uncertainty on how the regulatory framework would apply to it. The study has considered ways in which to reduce impacts on the natural environment and also how to provide compensation for remaining impacts on designated features. It is clear that the compensation requirement would be very
challenging, however defined, and require land change within the Severn estuary and probably outside it
