A single pinch point on the network that carries green energy generated in Scotland south of the border could increase the amount consumers pay to fire up gas-powered plants and switch off wind farms more than threefold to £2.2 billion by the end of the decade, analysis suggests
Constraints on grid capacity cost bill-payers a total of £970 million last year in paying gas plants to switch on when renewable generation was insufficient and asking wind farms to turn off to prevent the network becoming overloaded.
About £670 million of this was attributed to the boundary line between Scotland and England, according to research by Field, a British start-up focused on battery storage for renewable technologies, a figure that could top £2 billion by 2030.
Wind farms in Scotland are being curtailed about 40 per cent of the time, according to Field’s analysis.
Scottish Power and National Grid, which own the transmission lines along the boundary between Scotland and England, have set out plans to spend billions of pounds on upgrading the transmission and local distribution lines needed to carry power from Scotland, where generation is highest, to the areas of greatest demand, in the south of England.
The design and capacity of the UK’s electricity grid has failed to keep pace with the build-out of renewable generation, which has been heavily concentrated in Scotland.
The government has said it wants to increase offshore wind capacity to 50 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, from about 14GW at present, in an attempt to decarbonise the electricity system by 2035. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grid-pinch-point-on-scottish-border-to-push-up-energy-bills-b5785nch0?fbclid=IwAR3zRUh9O_Zd9ypmeUxSd76ZQVah34dD-K6cX_1iUm-PV8oBf6ZGCdFGncg_aem_AYimLj5K4nAYgKd4l6fyZ3CseoFz7leKDrGoiLJwcNQThxO7Qmf9uAdQh1ooz9cujv_FT0_8dpvhHRF8VJwVNa6G
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