British billpayers have spent an “absurd” £1bn [$1.26bn] to temporarily switch off wind turbines so far this year as the grid struggles to cope with their power. [emphasis, links added]
The amount of wind power “curtailed” in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at about 6.6 gigawatt hours (GWh), according to official figures, up from 3.8 GWh in the whole of last year.
Curtailment is where wind turbines are paid to switch off at times of high winds to stop a surge in power overwhelming the grid. Households and businesses pay for the cost of this policy through their bills.
The cost of switching off has reached about £1bn [$1.26bn] so far this year, according to analysis of market data by Octopus Energy, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
This is more than the £779m [$984m] spent last year and £945m [$1,193m] spent in 2022.
The jump in curtailment follows the opening of more wind farms at a time when the country still lacks the infrastructure needed to transport all the electricity they generate at busy times.
Clem Cowton, the director of external affairs at Octopus, added:
“The outdated rules of our energy system mean vast amounts of cheap green power go to waste.
“It’s absurd that Britain pays Scottish wind farms to turn off when it’s windy, while simultaneously paying gas-power stations in the South to turn on.
“We need to change the rules that govern our system to make the most of our homegrown energy and get bills down for British households and businesses.”
Octopus and others have called for the country to shift to a regional pricing system, which they say would incentivize more wind farms to be built closer to where power is needed.
This would reduce the need for hundreds of miles of cables to deliver electricity from the North and Scotland, where many wind farms are, to the South where demand is greatest.
However, the plans would be controversial as it would likely mean homes and businesses in the South paid more for their energy than those in the North.
Jason Mann, an electricity markets expert at FTI Consulting, said the high curtailment costs underlined the lack of cables to transport power to the South.
However, he also argued the £1bn cost was partly the result of Britain’s national electricity pricing system.
Mr Mann said:
“Congestion costs are an inevitable problem under the current market design we have in Britain.
“Increasing the amount of transmission capacity we have can alleviate the problem but not fully – it will remain an enduring issue.
“At some point, you have to do something that encourages greater demand in the North, for example, lower prices.”
According to the National Energy System Operator (Neso), curtailment costs are on course to surge to £6bn [$7.58bn] by 2030 if the status quo continues.
Read rest at Telegraph
This story would be really funny, if it was so serious and hugely expensive.
Here in Australia, we have a problem with too much electricity during the sunny parts of the day caused by roof top solar and solar factories all pumping our electricity, when it’s not needed. This results in all sorts of trouble. Feed-in payments to RTS owners has been cut back dramatically and it’s being considered to charge those same people for putting too much electricity in, which is causing instability in the grid. The other solution is to dump the unwanted electricity.
In the meantime, state governments are paying subsidies for coal power stations to remain operating because wind and solar cannot produce enough power reliably in the afternoons and nights, when it is needed by millions of households. Their input is also essential to stabilise the grid.
The other big joke for Australia, we have more gas under our feet than can be imagined, but our federal government considers that a bad fuel because it’s the dreaded “fossil fuel”, so they are planning install massive battery assemblies, from China of course, to solve the night-time problem. But, they have come to realise the cost of that and the durability of batteries simply won’t work. It would cost billions and we’d still be in the dark.
With regards to our gas under foot, we have bans on production in two of our most populous states, NSW and VIC, while we export massive ship loads of gas out of Western Australia to China and Japan. If someone could explain why we are doing this to ourselves, i would be very keen to hear from them. The east coast of Australia is, no surprise, short of gas.
To finish, home owners in NSW were asked to turn off dishwashers and airconditioning last week, to prevent the grid from failing. Temperatures rose to 30 degrees, which isn’t hot for Australia, and that was the reason. I cannot see us getting through this summer without blackouts because by late February, that’s when temperatures are usually in the mid 30’s and higher. If we can’t manage 30 degrees, we won’t be able to cope with 35+
Agreed – same here in UK we have at least 500 to 10000 years of coal and gas under our feet and for a far smaller amount of money we could be fully energy independent with high density rapidly dispatched power and controlled emissions with FGDS systems. Add another 2 or 3 nuclear plants over the next 20 years and we have the best of everything. Instead these morons go on about unreliable, unsustainable and hugely expensive wind and solar that is useless at this latitude FFS.
Red Ed and his cronies have to go!
They never should have Built the Bird Maiming Bat and Whale Killers in the First Place they blew their Money on useless Wind Turbines
Absolutely!