UK is paying £1 billion to waste a record amount of wind power

It’s set to be a record year for wind power in the UK, at least in terms of how much goes to waste.

Burgeoning capacity and blustery weather should have driven huge growth in output in 2024. But the grid can’t cope, forcing the operator to pay wind farms to turn off, a cost ultimately borne by consumers. It’s a situation that puts at risk plans to decarbonize the network by 2030 and makes it harder to cut bills.

Crucial to the net zero grid target is a massive build-out of renewable power, particularly from wind. Britain has boosted its offshore fleet by 50% in the past five years and is set to double it in the next five, BloombergNEF data show. 

But the grid hasn’t expanded at the same pace. As a result, the operator is increasingly paying wind farms, particularly those in Scotland, not to run. So far this year, the UK has spent more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in “congestion costs” to turn off plants that can’t deliver electricity because of grid constraints, and switch on others.

Last month for example, when Storm Bert swept across the UK, some of its newest and biggest wind parks were still. Scotland’s £3 billion Seagreen project, owned by SSE Plc and TotalEnergies SE, was shut off. SSE’s Viking development on the Shetland Islands was also closed.

The utility aims to build an even bigger wind farm off Scotland that could further aggravate the bottleneck unless the grid is expanded. In a statement, it said developers need to harness Scottish renewables to deliver on the UK’s energy-security targets. And to that end, transmission infrastructure is key.

Wind vs Gas

UK generators usually sell output in advance on the wholesale market. But those transactions don’t take into account the physical limitations of balancing supply and demand in real time. To keep the lights on, the operator steps in, paying some plants to turn off and others that are closer to demand centers to fire up.

Often, this means shutting off a far-flung wind farm and starting up a gas-fed plant that’s closer to a city.

“The outdated rules of our energy system mean vast amounts of cheap green power go to waste,” said Clem Cowton, director of external affairs at supplier Octopus Energy Group. “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.” 

Curtailing generation has become increasingly common. This year’s congestion costs exceed last year’s total and are second only to 2022, when power prices were almost three times as high.