Octopus Energy launches live windfarm constraint costs tracker

The National

04-07-2025

The company is urging ministers to support the introduction of zonal pricing, which would split the UK into price regions based on local supply and demand.
Octopus Energy has said repeatedly that such a system could mean Scots benefit from some of the lowest energy prices in Europe.
But the UK Government has said it will not split the country's energy market into regions if it raises people's bills in some areas. It in unclear when a decsion will be made.
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Now, Octopus has launched a live 'wasted wind' ticker – prominently featured on its website and visible to 12 million monthly visitors.
At the moment, Britain has one national energy price even though at any point in the day the cost of producing electricity differs radically around the country.
If an offshore wind farm in Scotland produces more electricity than the network can handle it is paid to turn off, or "constrained", and a gas-fired power plant in the south of England is paid to turn on.
The tracker on Octopus Energy's website, at the time of writing (Image: Octopus Energy) For example, the UK's biggest wind farm – Seagreen – is paid to not generate 71% of the time it could be generating. As a result, the effective cost of electricity it does generate is four times higher than it should be.
The constraint costs – which are collected from consumers – are huge.
The ticker reveals, in real time, how much bill payers' money is spent to turn off as systems that can't keep up with the power generated.
Constraint costs are on track to cost the UK a staggering £8 billion a year by 2030.
This year, the UK has already paid £650 million to turn off wind farms – more than £200m more than the same time last year.
Soon, figures and information on current constraint costs will be added to the 7.5m bills sent every month and will feature in its app, used by 500,000 people daily.
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Additional information breaking down more details on the costs of waste, and where customers' money goes, will be added shortly.
Pete Miller, Octopus Energy's head of customer experience, said: 'It's crazy to build wind farms where there's no grid, then pay them to sit idle, and then pay the most expensive fossil fuel plants to generate the power instead.
'Octopus was clear with customers that the energy crisis was caused by the cost of gas, and now we need to be clear that high electricity prices are the cost of a broken energy system.'