PAYMENTS to energy firms to switch off mainly Scottish wind farm turbines because they produce too much power have cost bill-payers approaching £1bn in just over five years and are expected to soar to £500m a year.
It has emerged that households who are seeing a doubling of energy bills since last winter are set to face further pain by the “absurd” constraint payments system which is predicted to dole out record amounts in the next four years.
It is estimated that 80% of UK wind energy curtailment in 2020 was on Scottish farms and the soaring compensation payments comes despite wind power in Scotland flagging in 2021.
It has emerged constraint payments including wind are forecast to rise from around £1bn in 2021 to £2.5bn per year by the mid-2020s, according to the National Grid, who also are predicting they will reduce once investment in new technology comes online.
Experts say there is a particular issue in Scotland which has large amounts of wind power but limited capacity to export this through interconnectors to England and Wales.
This ‘bottleneck’ means that when large amounts of wind power are being generated in Scotland, and demand is relatively low, there is limited scope to export this. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/23008149.staggering-wind-farm-switch-offs-cost-energy-customers-nearly-1bn/
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