Windfarm operators in the Carrick area have been paid almost £900,000 this
year to power down due to extreme wind.
Power firms qualify for the so-called constraint payments when wind farms
are switched off when it is too windy.
And the operators of the Hadyard Hill, Arecleoch and Mark Hill windfarms
have been making huge sums as a result of the bad weather.
Between January 1 and January 15 this year operators Scottish and Southern
Energy and Scottish Power Renewables collected £869,204 in constraint
payments between them as a result of temporarily shutting down.
The figures were supplied by the Renewable Energy Foundation which also
revealed that over £8m has been paid to windfarm operators across Scotland
in constraint payments so far this year alone.
Dr John Constable, director of Renewable Energy Foundation said: “The plain
fact is that the government has allowed too much wind to be built in
Scotland, and major constraint payments to wind power are now inevitable,
though undesirable. That wind farms are allowed to charge excessive prices,
well in excess of their lost income, can only add insult to injury. “
“Superficially, building more grid might seem to be the answer to wind
constraints. However, there are no cheap solutions and new wires in the air
are very expensive, so the ultimate cost to the consumer could actually be
much greater than paying wind farms to stop generating.”
In the first two weeks of 2015, there were only two days in which SSE did
not receive a constraint payment from Hadyard Hill being closed.
In total it received £495,144 in constraint payments from the 51 turbine
wind farm near Dailly and Barr.
On New Year’s Day SSE collected £85,807 in constraint payments and pocketed
a similar sum of £85,444 the day after. Their highest payment came on
January 7 when they received £87,716 as a result of the National Grid being
unable to handle the extra energy produced by the turbines.
Scottish Power Renewables collected a total of £306,131 from the Arecleoch
wind farm near Barrhill as well as £67,929 in payments from the nearby
Markhill wind farm.
On the first two days of 2015, Scottish Power Renewables were paid £56,684
and £82,230 as a result of the 60 turbine Arecleoch wind farm powering down.
Michael Rieley of Scottish Power Renewables said: “Despite anti-wind lobby
groups only ever focussing on the small proportion of constraint payments
given to wind, other types of energy generation also get constrained off
the grid and receive far higher payments.
“The latest figures from National Grid show that constraint and balancing
payments made to windfarms in 2014 totalled £31.55 million, while gas was
paid £125 million – nearly four times as much.”
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