On 29th June 2021 the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) issued a statistical release providing information on energy production, trade, and consumption in the UK for total energy and by specific fuels. It covered the UK economy for the first three months of 2021.*
Given that the covid crisis had not fully taken effect in the comparable first quarter of 2020, the following statistical analysis should come as no surprise:
“Energy consumption in the first quarter of 2021 was low as COVID-19 restrictions continued to reduce demand. Energy requirements for industrial use were down 2.1 per cent on the same period last year, and demand from other final users (e.g., shops, restaurants, offices, and public buildings) were [sic] down 4.6 per cent. Domestic demand was up 8.9 per cent as more people stayed at home. Oil used for transport dropped 31 per cent compared [to] the same period last year, led by a 70 per cent fall in aviation demand. Diesel demand was down 15 per cent and petrol demand down 29 per cent.”
Worryingly perhaps:
“Imports of gas reached a record level, offsetting lower than normal production to meet higher than normal demand for gas generation.”
Strangely:
“…the UK exported more primary oils than it imported for only the second time since 2005.”
This is where it gets really interesting:
“Renewable generation fell on the same period last year due to less favourable conditions in 2021, particularly for wind. Windy conditions last year led to record renewable generation and the stiller weather this year decreased wind generation by 20 per cent to 21 Twh.”
While reduction in demand for energy generally, and for oil, diesel and petrol specifically, is understandable, driven by the pandemic and the measures taken to combat it, the fall in renewables generation (not mentioned by the turbine-loving mainstream media, so far as I am aware) was driven by something else entirely – less wind than in the previous year. This doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us who keep an eye on the National Grid data, but it might to the long-suffering UK public, and possibly also to those in charge of UK energy policy, who are – irresponsibly in my view – making the National Grid ever more dependent on a source of energy that is inherently unpredictable and unreliable.
The unpredictability of UK weather caused problems in two ways – greater domestic demand (as I pointed out in “Global Cooling” the start of 2021 in the UK was very cold indeed) and lower renewables output:
“Renewable electricity generation was 34.7 TWh in Quarter 1 2021, 16 per cent lower than the peak in Quarter 1 of 2020. In contrast to early 2020, when high wind speeds drove record renewable generation, weather conditions in Quarter 1 2021 were less favourable for renewable generators, with lower wind speeds and lower average daily sun hours. These conditions meant that solar and wind generators both produced 20 per cent less electricity in Quarter 1 2021, despite small increases in capacity.”
As an aside, these further details might also cause some raised eyebrows, given the general direction of travel:
“Growth in renewable generation capacity was modest, up 1.5 per cent on the same period last year. Growth in renewable capacity has slowed since the start of 2020. Maintenance on the nuclear fleet reduced generation by 12 per cent and as a result low carbon’s share of generation was 6.8 percentage points down on last year at 55.4 per cent.”
I doubt if you’ll read that at the websites of the Guardian or the BBC.
As a further aside:
“In Q1 2021, coal imports rose to 1.5 million tonnes, 45 per cent up on Q1 2021. [This is a direct quote from the BEIS website, which I noticed is rather sloppy]. Net imports accounted for 49 per cent of supply in Q1 2021… Russia (45 per cent), the USA (15 per cent) and Australia (15 per cent) accounted for 75 per cent of total coal imports.”
And:
“Domestic coal production has fallen steadily because of coal mine closures and reduced demand. Imports filled the gap, rising from 1.0 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2020 to 1.5 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2021.”
Despite this, the powers-that-be and the usual suspects frown on any suggestion that a new coal mine should be opened in Cumbria.
National Grid Data**
As we’ve just seen, according to the latest report from BEIS, “low carbon’s share of generation [in the first quarter of 2021] was 6.8 percentage points down on last year at 55.4 per cent.”
I’m not entirely sure what “low carbon” is, but the National Grid’s website talks instead about “zero carbon sources”. Its report for June 2021 suggests that 42% of electricity in the UK during that month came from “zero carbon sources”. And that struck me as odd, given that June is a month when it should be warm, so demand might be expected to be low, and there are long hours of sunshine, so solar power might be expected to produce a not insignificant amount of electricity, and generally, one might anticipate that June would be among the best months for “zero carbon sources”. Yet during this optimum month, according to the National Grid, the share of “zero carbon sources” was 13.4% down on the first three months of this year, according to BEIS, three months which as BEIS acknowledges, were poorly-performing compared to the same quarter in the previous year.
And so I went to look at the National Grid’s data for January, February, and March 2021. I learned that “zero carbon sources” produced the following percentages of UK electricity in the first three months of 2021:
In January 2021, 40.6%;
In February 2021, 44%; and
In March 2021, 44%.
Intrigued, I looked at April and May too and found the figure of 40% for April and 40% for May 2021.
“Zero carbon sources” are defined (rather strangely, to my mind, given the nature of biomass) as solar, wind, hydro, nuclear and biomass. Given that the levels of generation from nuclear, biomass and hydro tend to be relatively stable, the poor performance, I reasoned, must be coming from wind, as solar should be contributing more in the months with longer hours of daylight). So I went back and checked.
And sure enough, in the first six months of 2021, I discovered that wind (and sun) generated the following percentages of the UK’s electricity:
January – 19.16% (solar 0.77%)
February – 25.95% (solar 1.85%)
March – 24% (solar 4%)
April – 15% (solar 7%)
May – 18% (solar 6%)
June – 15% (solar 7%).
The percentage of electricity imported to service the UK’s needs is also rather worrying, in my opinion:
January – 7.89%
February – 9.88%
March – 10%
April – 8%
May – 11%
June – 13%
As the year has progressed, with the exception of April, reliance on electricity imports has steadily increased. This looks like no way to run a country’s electricity system.
A question I leave you to muse upon is the discrepancy between National Grid and BEIS statistics. If National Grid’s “zero carbon” sources comprise nuclear, solar, biomass, hydro and wind, and BEIS’ “low carbon” sources consistently show a different, higher, percentage of electricity generation, what explains the difference? What is the low-carbon source that doesn’t qualify as zero-carbon in this Alice Through the Looking Glass World? It looks as though the official statistics are as unreliable as the renewable energy to which they relate.
However, that is not what I set out to write about. I wanted to explore one aspect of the cost of wind – another that is no way to run an electricity system. As we will see, although lack of wind is bad news for the National Grid, too much wind also causes problems.
Constraints payments
I bring no new insights to bear on the system of constraints payments now embedded within the UK’s electricity generation system. Much excellent work has already been done by others, and I draw attention to it below. My purpose here is simply to remind readers that wind turbine operators are regularly paid significant sums of money to switch wind turbines off, because when it is too windy, the National Grid cannot cope with the surge in supply. Secondly, to note that (until the rather windless 2021, at least), the sums paid out to operators to turn turbines off has been increasingly remorselessly. Thirdly, to observe that with many more fleets of turbines planned, the levels of constraints payments will continue to increase, possibly by huge amounts.
The Renewables Energy Foundation website*** is a good place to start for those interested in learning more about the Balancing Mechanism and constraints payments generally. This passage from it should be enough to pique your interest:
“Constraint payments to wind farms to reduce output started in 2010. Prior to that, National Grid usually called on gas and coal power stations to reduce electricity output which is the cheaper option… There is a fundamental difference between costs of reducing output between conventional power stations and wind powered generators. If a fossil-fuelled power station reduces output, savings are made on the cost of the fuel which need not be used. As a result of this, fossil-fuelled power stations submit negative bids to the system operator indicating they will pay National Grid a certain sum per MWh if asked to reduce output. Conversely, wind farms do not have fuel costs, but if they are called upon to reduce output, they lose subsidies such as the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) and (prior to 1 August 2015) the Climate Change Levy Exemption Certificates (referred to as Levy Exemption Certificates, LECs). This, in part, explains why wind generator participants in the Balancing Mechanism submit positive bids to the system operator indicating that they need to be paid by National Grid to reduce output.
What has become clear since 2010 is that the amount charged by wind farms is very significantly in excess of the value of the subsidies foregone. For example, the average price paid to Scottish wind farms to reduce output in 2011 was £220 per MWh, whereas the lost subsidy is approximately £55 per MWh. The amount paid by conventional plant such as coal and gas was approximately £34 per MWh to reduce output in 2011. Ultimately the cost of balancing electricity is paid by the electricity consumer so this large difference in cost is not in the consumer interest.”
The Power Technology website also has a useful primer on the topic, and refers to REF figures as part of its explanation.**** Again, this should whet your appetite to read more:
“…‘constraint payments’ have reportedly totalled up to £650m over the last decade as compensation to wind farm owners for discarding 8.7 TWh of electricity. In some cases, wind farm operators have been paid more to switch off than produce power….
…As to who actually foots the constraint payment bill, the REF explains that they are ultimately paid for by electricity consumers through their bills, via the Balancing Services Use of Systems (BSUoS). The BSUoS, which is added onto bills as a charge, recovers the cost to the system operator (National Grid), who pay out energy producers when the system requires this form of balancing.”
Money for nothing. Not a great way to run a system – unless you happen to own a wind farm, of course.
**https://www.nationalgrideso.com/great-britains-electricity-explained-monthly-insights
***https://www.ref.org.uk/energy-data/notes-on-wind-farm-constraint-payments
Climate Scepticism 
There is no such thing as “zero carbon” electricity. Wind farms have huge amounts of embodied carbon in their construction, and solar farms are only a little better. Zero carbon is greenwash.
And it’s all very well to proclaim how much power was wind generated: there still had to be a steam turbine spooled up for when the wind drops.
Then there is the devastating effect of the industrialisation of our scenery.
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Stephen, obviously I agree entirely, but thank you for making the point. The article was long enough without pointing out that when they say “zero carbon”, they mean “zero carbon dioxide”, and more pertinently, pointing out that the phrase “zero” carbon (or CO2) is a lie in this context, since all forms of “renewable” energy involve the emitting of significant amounts of CO2, in their manufacture and transport, and often (in the case of wind turbines) in the destruction and/or disruption of peat, given where they are often sited.
It is always worth pointing this out, as otherwise the language surrounding these issues becomes distorted by repeated misuse. There should be no place for the inaccurate (in this context) term “zero carbon” in these discussions, and there is a danger of it becoming accepted unthinkingly by the public, because of the repeated and regular misuse of the term by those who push a particular agenda.
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Yes, it all seems to be working well. Throw away energy while paying for more than the value of it. It would be like not requiring any whelks one day but paying the whelk stall owner double their value to toss them to the gulls.
And at the same time relying increasingly on imported whelks, er, leccy.
“Money for nothing and your chicks for free” – in the sense that with the parent bird smashed to the ground, the young starve or are eaten by the gulls, once they’ve slept off the whelks?
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As an antidote, I recommend this video:
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Ron, thanks for the antidote. However, it’s difficult to be optimistic, when you read stuff like this:
“Green transport can only succeed with a greener grid
Analysis: UK power infrastructure needs a big upgrade to tackle a surge in electric vehicles and manufacturing of alternative fuels”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/17/green-transport-can-only-succeed-with-a-greener-grid
“The challenge of decarbonising the UK’s roads, railways and flight paths will rely on harnessing the UK’s cleaner energy system to power the future of the transport sector….
…But senior energy industry sources have warned that the UK’s ambitious targets to drive down carbon emissions from the transport sector will require an acceleration of green investment in the energy system too.
“The energy industry has a huge role to play in facilitating the decarbonisation of transport,” said Graeme Cooper, the head of future markets at National Grid.
He says a green transport system will require a multibillion-pound investment to rewire ageing power grids and fit vast amounts of electric-vehicle charging infrastructure. Additionally, it will spur a boom in demand for green energy to produce hydrogen for heavy trucks, ferries and long-haul coach travel.
“There will be an uptick in demand for energy, so we need to ensure that we are future-proofing, putting the right wires in the right place for future demand. We also want to ensure that the energy we’re plugging in for the increased demand is as green as possible,” Cooper said.
The energy regulator, Ofgem, recently gave the green light to a £300m investment spree to help triple the number of ultra-rapid electric car charging points across the country over the next two years. Energy networks are expected to install 1,800 ultra-rapid charge points at motorway service stations and a further 1,750 charge points in towns and cities. It’s a taste of what’s to come if the UK hopes to meet its green transport targets.
The Energy Networks Association (ENA) estimates that by 2028 the industry will have needed to invest in enough grid connections for charging points to power 8.2 million electric vehicles. A green transport system will also require the equivalent of about 30 terawatt hours of hydrogen fuel per year by the middle of the century, which will require roughly a tenth of the UK’s current electricity use to manufacture, it says.
Peter Kocen at the ENA said the speed of the transition would require a new approach to regulation – one that helped energy companies invest in anticipation of the boom in green transport. “The regulatory environment sets out investment over a five-year period and requires energy networks to provide evidence of immediate ‘need’ for this investment. But energy networks also need to be able to be responsive to the energy transition, including investing before there’s the immediate need,” Kocen said….
…Keith Anderson, told the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders this year that the company was preparing for more than 30 million electric vehicles to be on the road by 2040.
“By 2050, we’ll need something like 25 million private chargers and 3 million public ones,” he told the trade group’s international motoring summit last month. “That will only be possible if the electricity distribution networks are suitably reinforced to cope with all the additional demand, and a system of fair access for remote or deprived communities is in place.”
In addition, heavy transport “like bin lorries, big buses and boats, [which] are unsuited to battery power” will need green hydrogen – made using renewable electricity and water – to help heavy vehicles, he told the Observer.
The company plans to invest £10bn over the next five years in projects ranging from “wind and solar power plants to battery storage – from smart grids to EV charge points and hydrogen electrolysers” to help meet the need for car charging and low-carbon transport.
“In a couple of decades’ time, UK electricity demand will double, as transport, heating and industry all make the shift from carbon. In short, we need to electrify the hell out of everything over the next few years if we’re going to meet our net zero targets,” he said.”
Looks like a recipe for disaster, to me, especially on the back of those BEIS and National Grid statistics.
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Yes, that is depressing news. Reminds of the climate lemmings;
Where to stand aside until the stampede stalls?
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Mark,
Thanks for a good overview. The amounts paid out for constraints came as a surprise and I cannot see how they are justified – probably some sneaky small print in the contracts which were never read carefully! Those figures need greater visibility.
I suspect the difference in the claims for the percentage of electricity supplied by renewables is down to a bit of sleight-of-hand on the part of BEIS to boost renewables. My guess is that the Grid’s figures reflect the percentage of total consumption whereas BEIS are talking about the percentage of power actually generated in the UK, excluding imports.
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MikeHig – welcome, and many thanks for the comment. I suspect you may well be right regarding the discrepancy between National Grid and BEIS statistics. I should have spotted this on the BEIS website:
“…low carbon’s share of generation was 6.8 percentage points down on last year at 55.4 per cent.” Share of generation is different from share of electricity consumed. Well done for working it out.
While, as usual with these people, the BEIS’ statistics are factually correct, they are, it seems to me, misleading (deliberately so?) to a casual reader, since they suggest that renewables are doing better than is actually the case. 55.4% of generation sounds so much better than 40% or 44% of consumption. Most people are ignorant as to the huge amounts of electricity the UK imports, and to many of them the difference being percentage generated and percentage consumed will not readily be appreciated.
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“Wind farms paid nearly £2m to switch off – even as customers face soaring energy bills – Telegraph”
https://scotlandagainstspin.org/2021/09/wind-farms-paid-nearly-2m-to-switch-off-even-as-customers-face-soaring-energy-bills-telegraph/
“Wind farms paid nearly £2m to switch off – even as customers face soaring energy bills
Turbines stopped over three days because electricity they would have produced could not have reached regions that needed it
Constraint payments are made by the National Grid to balance supply and demand across the electricity network
Wind farms were paid more than £1.8 million to shut down this week – at a time when consumers face huge rises in energy bills because of the spiralling cost of natural gas.
The turbines were switched off over the course of three days because the electricity they would have produced could not have reached the regions that needed it.
Instead, electricity from gas-fired power stations was used at a further cost to consumers of several million pounds.
An analysis by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), a charitable think tank that has criticised wind energy over its reliability and cost, found that 38 wind farms – all in Scotland – received payments totalling £1.85 million over the course of three days not to generate electricity.”
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“Electricity customers paid windfarms £1bn to switch off turbines
The compensation has been paid out over the past decade.”
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/electricity-customers-paid-windfarms-1bn-to-switch-off-turbines
“Electricity customers have paid windfarm operators £1bn to switch off turbines, STV can reveal.
The compensation has been paid over the past decade.
Windfarm owners receive the money when the electricity grid is at capacity. The costs are likely to escalate….
…The financial milestone in their history was passed on Thursday night.
When the national grid is at capacity, windfarm owners collect so-called “constraint payments” for switching turbines off.
The cost is added to domestic electricity bills.
The payments amounted to £13m in 2011 and rose rapidly to a record £274m last year, according to the Renewable Energy Foundation.
So far this year, £76m has been paid out. It has been a less windy year.
A charity that monitors the data has condemned the current system.
Dr John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation, said: “It was the choice of windfarm developers to build in remote areas where there’s low demand and very little grid.
“So, the fact that they’re constrained off is an entirely foreseeable commercial risk and they really shouldn’t be receiving any compensation at all.
“As it is, the extraordinary thing is that they’re actually making more money when they’re not generating than when they’re generating and selling normally to consumers.”…
…The UK and Scottish governments, as well as the Green Party, were all approached for a comment.
A spokeswoman for the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “Keeping bills low is a key priority, and constraint payments remain by far the most efficient option for National Grid Electricity System Operator to balance supply and demand.
“Constraint payments are used in electricity systems across the world, keeping costs down for consumers and ensuring safe, secure and reliable electricity.”
A Highlander who first highlighted the controversial payments some years ago believes the £1bn figure will shock people.
Stuart Young, an anti-windfarm campaigner, said: “Since it’s come out in the open, people will get to know about it.
“They’re going to feel very, very angry at the way the energy industry and politicians have deceived them and not told them the truth about it.
“There’s lots more pain to come. Every time a small turbine or a big turbine is added to the mix then this price is going to go higher and higher.”
Local battles in the Highlands, where most turbines are located, continue.
Michael Baird, of the Struie Action Group, said: “We are concerned about the number of windfarms that are coming into the area.
“We feel that at the moment there is a sufficient quantity of them and we’re just adding more and more to the constraint payments to have the turbines actually switched off.””
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The Renewable Energy Foundation has another piece up about constraints payments:
“Why are “Unsubsidised” Wind Farms Receiving Constraint Payments?”
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/372-why-are-unsubsidised-wind-farms-receiving-constraint-payments
The whole article is well worth reading, IMO.
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Latest figures, (thanks to Stephen Lucking and Scotland Against Spin) for constraints payments:
https://scotlandagainstspin.org/2023/01/constraint-payments-update/
In 2022: £227,048,475 (or just over £227M). I suppose that’s the result of there being more turbines getting paid to switch off, and also 2022 being windier than the wind drought year of 2021, when constraints payments were only £142.9M. In short, 2022 saw a 50% increase in these payments over 2021, though we still haven’t reached the £274M paid out in 2020, presumably because the payment rate is falling. If anyone knows why that is (negotiated? Imposed by government?) I’d love to know.
I’m not sure if those figures are UK-wide or Scotland only, but given that thanks to the madness of the SNP, most wind farms are in Scotland, it probably doesn’t matter too much either way.
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“Wind farms backed by green subsidies could be paid more to switch off
Loophole in the Government’s ‘contracts for difference’ scheme means that operators could make rates above their fixed prices”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/28/wind-farms-backed-green-subsidies-could-paid-switch/
“Billions blown on the great wind farms rip-off”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/billions-blown-on-the-great-wind-farms-rip-off/
Well worth a read, IMO.
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Mark, thanks for the linked article, written by our old friend the Bishop (aka Andrew Montford Deputy Director of Net Zero Watch).
detailing the costs involved to as many Joe Public as possible is the only way to at least curtail the rush to NZ.
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SNP does it again with the lifeline ferries to the islands. At the moment there are 3 of the large size ferries in repair docks, also another 2 large ferries have not been for annual overhaul due to the ongoing repairs and 1 medium size is also waiting for cover. This is the mind blowing bit, there is a medium size ferry held in the Clyde unable to sail to the islands between November and end of March, they have chartered an Orkney ferry for 9 months at a cost of £9.0 million to help cover the routes until the new 5 year late ferry is available ! The cost of a new Orkney style ferry was £12.0 million 3 years ago and would have been sailing for the last 2 years covering innumerable breakdowns, instead they bought a small 34 car ferry for £9.0 million only suitable for a single route. Money for not quite nothing, but the stress and heartache for the islanders takes it way past nothing.
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“Energy giant SSE to pay £9.8m penalty for pricing breach”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-65818341
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“Free electricity: Is it really fair?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-66775731
…
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“Scottish wind farm accused of using loophole to pull in £647m for NOT generating electricity”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/23/scotland-wind-farm-accused-of-using-loophole/
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“Two windfarms share £80 million to switch off
The cost to consumers of so-called windfarm constraint payments is rising quickly.”
https://www.netzerowatch.com/all-news/two-windfarms-share-80-million-of-payments-to-switch-off
Excellent analysis by Andrew, as usual. My only criticism would be the suggestion that “canny Scots” are the beneficiaries (at least in toto):
https://tethys.pnnl.gov/wind-project-sites/moray-east-offshore-wind-farm
SSE plc (the ultimate owner of Seagreen, I believe) may be listed here, but its shareholders, as with any listed company, will include a lot of foreigners too.
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“£1 billion paid to windfarm companies to stop generating electricity is scandalous waste of money”
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/windfarms-constraint-payments-ps920-million-fuel-poverty-4761558
…Last year UK lost the better part of £1 billion – £920m to be more precise – in curtailment costs, created by having to shut down windfarms due to overcapacity and bottlenecking in the National Grid. One estimate by the Carbon Tracker think tank found that curtailment was already costing the average household £40 per year in 2023, and that this could more than triple by 2026….
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“Miliband’s flagship wind farm paid nearly £2.5m to keep turbines switched off”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/miliband-s-flagship-wind-farm-paid-nearly-2-5m-to-keep-turbines-switched-off/ar-AA1pMfud
Ed Miliband’s flagship wind farm has already been paid close to £2.5 million to keep its turbines switched off, The Telegraph can reveal.
Mr Miliband, the Energy Secretary, praised the Viking wind farm in the Shetlands, which officially opened on Thursday, saying “hundreds of thousands of homes” across the country would benefit from “cheap, home-grown energy”.
He said the development, the UK’s largest onshore wind farm, “shows why we need more developments like this to make Britain a clean energy superpower”.
SSE, which operates Viking, promised that it would be Britain’s “most productive” onshore wind farm. But figures from the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) show 62 per cent of its output has had to be discarded in its first month.
The wind farm has so far been paid £2.48 million by the National Grid to reduce its energy output, according to the REF analysis.
The payouts, which will ultimately be added to consumer bills, have been made almost every day this month and have varied between £227,192 and £8,408 per day....
…The value of constraint payments to wind farms has increased rapidly in recent years as more of Britain’s power has come from renewable sources. Last year, wind farms were paid over £310 million to stop producing energy, up from £174,000 in 2010, according to REF data....
…The charity’s analysis found that £1.8 billion had been spent since constraint payments began in 2010, which had ultimately been passed on to consumers’ electricity bills.
Dr John Constable, the director of the REF, said: “The paradoxical outcome is that wind farm developers actually make more money when they are paid to reduce output rather than when they are selling normally on the market. The British consumer is being ripped off, and developers are laughing all the way to the bank.
“All you hear from Ed Miliband is that more renewable energy will make energy cheap – but unless he deals with the constraint payment programme, that is simply an illusion.”
Dr Constable said it would “certainly not save people money on their electricity bill” if wind farms continued to be paid huge sums of money to keep turbines off….
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“SSE Renewables earns £5.5m in constraint payments in just three months”
https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2024/10/27/sse-renewables-earns-constraint-payments/
…Sustainable Shetland’s chair Frank Hay accused SSE of knowing there would be grid constraint issues during construction, and “gaming the system at consumers’ expense”.
“This highlights the very poor energy strategy in this country over many years which has resulted in this kind of situation developing,” he said.
“It will no doubt take a few years for the grid constraint issues to be resolved, by which time consumers will be very much poorer.
“Relying too much on wind power may mean that they are very much colder as well with an emerging threat of blackouts. “It is comforting to know that the good old Lerwick power station is still there to keep the lights on in Shetland, if needed.”...
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“Cost of Switching Off U.K. Wind Farms on Windy Days Hits “Absurd” £1 Billion”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/02/cost-of-switching-off-u-k-wind-farms-on-windy-days-hits-absurd-1-billion/
…The cost of switching off has reached about £1 billion so far this year, according to analysis of market data by Octopus Energy which was first reported by Bloomberg. This is more than the £779 million spent last year and £945 million 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….
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“Discarded wind energy increases by 91% in 2024”
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/384-discarded-wind-energy-increases-by-91-in-2024
Wind farm constraints continue to rise, both in total volume and in cost. In 2024 the consumer paid more than £393 million in 2024 in direct costs – and very much more than this in indirect costs – to discard 8.3 TWh of wind energy.
By comparison, in 2023, 4.3 TWh of wind-generated electricity was discarded at a direct cost of £310 million.
The prices being charged by wind farms to reduce output fell in 2024 in spite of subsidies having risen, which supports our view that prices have hitherto been excessive.
However, planning application data shows that the, in our view, indefensibly high rewards for constraints continue to incentivise wind farm development in areas of the UK that have low demand and weak grid connection, resulting in high constraints.
The bulk of the additional volume and cost of constraints is due to the ever-increasing number of Scottish wind farms being sited remote from areas of demand: more than 98% of the total constrained volume arises from Scottish wind farms.
In particular, the offshore wind farm, Seagreen, whose majority owner is SSE, was alone responsible for 40% of the total volume of constraints. Seagreen is currently unsubsidised but 25% of its capacity has been awarded an as yet unimplemented Contract for Difference (CfD).
In another blog post we have explained how deferring take-up of a CfD has enabled heavily constrained wind farms to make very significant earnings over and above what they might have made under the CfD regime.
Seagreen is clearly woefully located from the perspective of the consumer, and excellently placed for SSE and the other shareholders. Because so much of its potential output could not be used, its load factor was a mere 14% in 2024. To put this in context, government expects offshore load factors to be in the region of 40%. However, this extremely low productivity does not translate into lower earnings for the wind farm. On the contrary, it actually earns more than it would by selling to the market. This paradoxical outcome arises because Seagreen gets paid as if it had actually generated and sold the electricity, and on top of that charges an extra premium per MWh for reducing output. Bad though this is for the consumer, further insult is added to the injury because the System Operator must now bring the market back into physical balance by purchase electricity equivalent to the constrained volume from a generator south of the grid constraint.
Putting aside the additional costs south of the constraint, the scale of the consumer cost of Seagreen can be estimated thus: in 2024 the consumer paid Seagreen £104 million for actually generating electricity, plus £198 million for the constrained volumes, and £64 million for the premium charged to reduce output.
This gives a total of £367 million.
The amount of green electricity actually generated by Seagreen in 2024 was 1.36 TWh. Therefore the cost to the consumer of Seagreen’s actually generated wind power was £270 per MWh.
To provide context for this cost, the current strike price sought by Seagreen in its Contract for Difference is £55 per MWh. No wonder that companies are reluctant to implement their contracts.
The industry and Ofgem are aware that the way that wind farm constraints are managed is not in the consumer interest. In November 2023 the then National Grid Electricity System Operator (now nationalised as National Electricity System Operator) proposed a change to the electricity market to mitigate some of these costs. The proposal document noted that the true cost to consumers of wind farm constraints was not transparent, that the market was not efficient, and that competition between generators was not fair and that consumers were paying over the odds.
They assessed that the worst-case scenario of doing nothing about the situation could result in up to £16 billion in consumer costs being incurred by 2030, a very large burden on an already heavily pressured consumer. The deadline initially set for the NESO recommendation was September 2024. However, this deadline has now been put back to April 2026. Given the scale of the annual costs this lack of urgency is deplorable, and we can only assume that neither the industry nor the government is seriously committed to addressing unfair consumer costs.
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Mark; thanks for this post. It is utterly baffling how the development of windfarms has been allowed to proceed without any cross-linkage to grid connections and, in particular, local grid capacity. I don’t know where the responsibility lies but someone should be called out for gross negligence. It’s hard to resist thoughts of regulatory capture, future sinecure jobs on fat pay packages, etc..
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“Record CfD Subsidies in 2024A record £2.4bn in CfD subsidies paid in 2024”
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/record-cfd-subsidies-in-2024
Hot on the heels of the record payments made under the Feed-in-Tariff scheme in the year to end March 2024, the data is now available for subsidies paid under the Contract for Difference Scheme (CfDs) in calendar year 2024. The data comes from the Low Carbon Contract Company (LCCC). The data is subject to minor revision and the data snapshot for this piece was taken on 14th January 2025.
A record £2.4bn was paid out in subsidies across a range of technologies, but the largest recipient was offshore wind.…
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Three paragraphs from David Turver’s article tell a pretty wretched story:
…As well as 2024 being a record year overall, offshore wind received more subsidy than in any other year with £1.9bn paid out. Biomass conversion, a euphemism for burning trees, received £309m and biomass with combined heat and power (CHP) received a further £90m. Onshore wind received £73m and the two solar farms with active CfDs received just over £1m.
Incidentally, in December 2024, £260.3m was paid out in subsidies, the second highest month on record, with April 2024 being the highest at £269.8m.
Supporters of renewables often point out that when the market price of electricity is above the CfD strike price, then generators pay money back. This is true, but that was only significant in 2022 when a net £346m was repaid and compares to the net cost of the scheme of £9.6bn since inception….
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“Constraint Payment Price Drop suggests Consumers Overcharged by more than £300 million”
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/388-constraint-payment-price-drop
In 2022, REF highlighted the fact that so-called ‘unsubsidised’ wind farms were charging to reduce generation during periods of grid constraint (“Why are ‘Unsubsidised’ Wind Farms Receiving Constraint Payments?”)
We could see no justification for wind farms that are not losing income when constrained to charge for any reduction in output. Their commercial position is not harmed, and therefore the constraint payment represents additional and unearned income.
The regulator, Ofgem, has the authority to prevent such overcharging under the terms of the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) and we raised this matter directly with Ofgem in October 2023 and again in May 2024 but have received no substantive reply.
Table 1 shows the wind farms which are or have been unsubsidised while taking constraint payments. Included are Moray East and Hornsea 1 & 2 offshore wind farms which deferred implementing their Contracts for Difference subsidy, in the case of Moray East by two and a half years. The total payments to this category of wind farm exceed £340 million, which we consider to be vastly in excess of what could be argued was justifiable.
Our conclusion has received further support in recent weeks from the fact that the bid price for reducing output for some of these wind farms has fallen sharply.
It is not apparent whether this fall in prices is because of a belated intervention from Ofgem or whether the wind farms themselves have at last recognised that the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition precludes profiting from grid constraints.
It seems reasonable to assume that these lower prices are representative of the real cost of reducing output and suggests that the prices asked over the last 5 years have been excessive. If this is correct, Ofgem’s failure to intervene is surely negligent.
To put this in concrete terms: taking 19p per MWh as a reasonable price, it would appear that the consumer was overcharged by approximately £338 million. If that is so, there is a strong case for Ofgem fining these windfarms for breaches of the TCLC and returning the funds to the consumer.
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“Britain Paying £180,000 an Hour to Switch Off Wind Farms”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/03/03/britain-paying-180000-an-hour-to-switch-off-wind-farms/
Britain is paying almost £180,000 an hour to switch off wind farms because there is nowhere for the excess power to go. The Telegraph has more.
So-called constraint payments, where turbines are switched off to help balance the grid, have already cost £252 million in the first two months of 2025.
This is up from £158 million over the same period last year, market data shows – an increase of 60%. The payments amount to £4.3 million per day, or about £178,000 an hour, money which ultimately comes from energy bills.
The revelation adds to concerns about the state of the UK’s creaking power grid as Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, pushes forward with an unprecedented expansion of wind and solar farms across the country...
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