Britain, £1bn to 'turn off' wind farms - Grid constraints force operators to halt production, driving up costs
This is set to be a record year for wind power in the UK, at least in terms of how much goes to waste.
Growing capacity and windy weather should have fueled a big increase in output in 2024. But the grid can't keep up, forcing the operator to pay wind farms to shut down, a cost ultimately borne by consumers. It's a situation that jeopardizes plans to decarbonize the grid by 2030 and makes it harder to lower bills.
The massive expansion of renewable energy, especially wind, is important to the net zero grid objective. Britain has increased its offshore fleet by 50% in the past five years and is set to double it in the next five years.
But the network has not developed at the same pace. As a result, the operator is increasingly paying wind farms, especially those in Scotland, not to operate. So far this year, the UK has spent more than £1bn to switch off plants that can't deliver electricity due to grid constraints and switch others on.
Last month, for example, when Storm Bert swept through the United Kingdom, some of the newest and largest wind farms were not operational. Scotland's £3 billion Seagreen project, owned by SSE Plc and TotalEnergies SE, has been shut down.
UK generators usually sell output to the wholesale market. But these transactions do not take into account the physical constraints of balancing supply and demand in real time. To keep the lights on, the operator intervenes, paying some plants to turn off and others closer to demand centers to turn on. Often, this means shutting down a remote wind farm and turning on a gas-fired plant closer to a city.
Generation curtailment has become increasingly common. This year's congestion costs exceed last year's total and are second only to 2022, when energy prices were almost three times higher.
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