By Paul Homewood

  h/t Philip Bratby

Energy bills will rise £200 a year within a decade to pay for wasted wind power as new turbines in Scotland are paid to switch off, according to new forecasts.

Poor electricity grid infrastructure means energy created by turbines in Scotland cannot reach homes in England on very windy days.

Last year Britain wasted enough wind power for a million homes, but new turbines built over the next decade would see that figure grow fivefold by 2030, according to think tank Carbon Tracker.

The cost to pay wind farms to switch off at these times and buy gas to fill in the shortfall would rise to £3.5 billion a year, according to Carbon Tracker’s analysis. That would add an average of £200 to annual household energy bills.

Bottlenecks in the planning process

The problem has been blamed on bottlenecks in the planning process which can take up to seven years for major new electricity cable projects.

Meanwhile, the construction of wind farms has grown steadily to help meet the Government’s net zero goals.

As a result, wind generation in Scotland is expected to grow four times faster by 2030 than the cables required to send the power across the border.

Scotland can currently produce 10GW of electricity from its wind farms on peak days, but the grid has the capacity to transport just 6GW.

With Scotland accounting for just 10 per cent of the country’s electricity demand, an excess of power would be created on days with high wind and low demand if turbine owners were not paid to switch off.

National Grid paid Scottish wind farms to stop generating on more than 200 occasions last year while paying gas power stations in England to increase output to compensate.

“The electricity grid is not fit for purpose because investments are not increasing in step with the rapid growth of wind power,” said report author Lorenzo Sani.

“Without significant improvement in the permitting timeframes for critical energy transmission infrastructure – the grid can’t support the Government’s plans to decarbonise generation by 2035 or deliver on its vision of ‘affordable, homegrown, clean energy’.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/15/energy-bills-rise-200-pound-per-year-scottish-wind-turbines/

Instead of spending yet more billions on transmission infrastructure, I have a better idea – simply stop all further development of wind power in Scotland, and concentrate it only where there is already sufficient transmission capacity.

And if this is such a big problem already, just wait till we have the 45GW of offshore wind power promised!