Bill for switching off wind farms hits £500m
Payments related to switching off wind farms in 2025 so far are equivalent to £3.3m a day – or £136,000 per hour.
A row is growing in the energy industry over how to tackle the issue, with the Government currently looking at options to reform the market.
One idea being considered is a break-up of the existing national market into different regions, or zones, that would see each part of the country pay a different price for electricity based on local supply and demand.
This would mean the amount paid to wind farms in Scotland when there is too much power being generated would fall dramatically.
It would also probably result in higher energy prices for households in London, southern England and the Midlands, given that these are areas where renewables are in short supply.
Wind farms that were curtailed on Tuesday included the Seagreen offshore wind farm in the North Sea – the largest of its kind in Scotland – which was switched off for nearly three quarters of the time it was meant to operate last year.
Investment fears
Wind farm developers Scottish Power and SSE have argued that reforming the market will make it far harder to predict future revenues and could create huge uncertainty – potentially holding up major investment decisions on new schemes.
This would also put the Government at risk of missing its 2030 clean power target, which requires huge amounts of generation capacity to be installed in the next five years.
On Wednesday, a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: 'The National Energy System Operator's independent report shows we can achieve clean power by 2030 with cheaper electricity, even factoring in constraint payments.
'Through our clean power action plan, we will work with industry to rewire Britain, upgrade our outdated infrastructure to get renewable electricity on the grid and minimise constraint payments.'
A spokesman for Neso, which manages the electricity grid, said: 'Neso takes its role to deliver a safe, secure and reliable national electricity network at least cost to consumers, extremely seriously.
'We are constantly looking for new ways to reduce costs associated with balancing electricity supply and demand on a second-by-second basis, as these costs are passed on to consumers in their electricity bill.'
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