How the energy price crisis turned wind farms into giant money spinners – Telegraph

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Spinning in the Lammermuir Hills in southern Scotland, the 60 turbines at the Crystal Rig II wind farm have been powering homes for more than a decade. When they came online in 2010, electricity prices were around £40 per MWh and wind power was still a relative rarity in the UK.
Its output has become a lot more valuable recently, in a boost for owners Fred Olsen Renewables, part of the Bonheur group controlled by Norway’s Olsen shipping family. More than 15 months of surging electricity prices, hovering north of £150 per megawatt-hour, four or five times long-term averages, have boosted wind farms.
Yet now wind farm owners face questions about whether they are making too much. High wholesale gas and electricity prices have pushed household and business bills to unsustainable levels, forcing the Government to shield consumers with an estimated £65bn of borrowing over just the next six months.
Ministers now want to reform the market, limiting the revenue that wind farms can make. At issue is the mismatch between the costs to generate wind power and the prices it can fetch. The market price for electricity is generally set by the price of dominant gas-fired generation, where costs have climbed. But wind farm owners do not have fuel costs, meaning the electricity price increase is potentially all upside. Most wind farms currently operating in Britain also receive subsidies too.
The industry insists that a picture of it wallowing in cash is wide of the mark, as many developers would have sold much of their electricity at lower rates well before the current price surge, to get the long-term, stable returns they prize. Newer wind farms are also on fixed price contracts with the Government, at rates which mean they are currently paying money back to consumers. “In the wind industry in general we’re not seeing the excess profits being made in the oil and gas sector,” says Barnaby Wharton, director at trade body Renewables UK.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/how-energy-price-crisis…/
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