From Climate Scepticism

By Mark Hodgson

Lost in transmission

In A Nation of Great Import I railed against the fact that for a few days in August, the UK regularly imported significant volumes of electricity via the interconnectors from the European mainland. This is despite the fact that one assumes those days are close to the optimum time for the UK’s electricity grid with its increasing reliance on electricity generated by so-called renewables (on- and off-shore wind turbines and solar panels).

After all, this is a time of low demand (long hours of daylight, relatively warm) and optimum generating conditions (sun high in the sky for much of the day, no winter dunkelflautes to worry about). Why, then, do we find we are so heavily reliant on the interconnectors when in theory we should be enjoying the benefits of energy security that Mr Miliband keeps telling us about?

Let there be no doubt, we are dependent on the interconnectors. It is difficult to obtain detailed and up-to-date figures. Perhaps the Freedom of Information request (reference: FOI-2025-2880) directed to the Office for National Statistics was sent to the wrong office, but it did ask relevant questions:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I request the following information:

1. Statistical data on the volume and cost of electricity and gas imported into the UK over the past 12 months.
2. The average cost per kWh at which energy is imported and sold to UK energy suppliers.
3. Any available data on profit margins or mark-ups applied between import and resale.
4. A breakdown of energy sources (e.g., nuclear, gas, wind, solar) in the import and resale chain.

The response was rather disappointing:

Thank you for your request.

Unfortunately, we do not hold the information you have requested.

It is to be hoped that someone within officialdom does hold the information requested. The ONS suggested the questioner might try his/her luck with HMRC. They didn’t seem optimistic that DESNZ would be able to help much:

We do receive electricity and gas prices from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), but this does not disaggregate out any imported elements. The data we receive also do not attribute the source method of generation.

Fortunately, some information about this sort of thing is in the public domain. A Nuclear Industry Association press release of 16^th July 2024 was rather alarming:

UK relies on other countries to power more than 10 million homes
June sees highest ever proportion of imported electricity

The UK is on track to import a record amount of electricity in 2024, smashing the previous record from 2021 by 50%. According to Nuclear Industry Association analysis of National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) data, net electricity imports to Great Britain totalled a record 9 TWh in the first quarter of 2024, and 14.95 TWh from January through the end of May.

Net imports have accounted for 15% of GB power, enough for 10.8 million homes. This puts Great Britain on track to import nearly 36 TWh over the whole year, 46% higher than the previous record of 24.6 TWh set in 2021.

This would be higher than the planned output of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (25 TWh) and more than the previously planned Wylfa Newydd power station on Anglesey (22 Twh).

Then there’s a Drax Global press release from 9^th September 2024:

Power surge: UK spends £250 million each month importing record volumes of electricity from Europe

The UK is importing record amounts of power from Europe, with the country spending more than £250 million on power from abroad each month, new analysis by Drax Electric Insights has found.

A record 20% of the country’s electricity demand was met by imports from Europe during the second quarter of 2024. Imports accounted for more than double the volume of power generated by the country’s solar panels, and even nearly overtook gas the first time ever…

…Britain has imported electricity from abroad since 1961 but changing power grids and trading rules has led to a sharp rise both in the number of interconnectors, and the volume of power flowing into the country in recent years. During the second quarter of 2024, Britain imported 12.2 TWh, while exports were just 3 TWh.

Admittedly, both the nuclear industry and Drax have a vested interest in shouting about the problems we in the UK face with regard to electricity generation, since both seek to claim that they can be a large part of the solution. Still, the information they have dug up and presented to us would seem to be factually accurate.

That, then, is the rather problematic background. Why are we in this mess?

Part (admittedly only part) of the explanation can be found in curtailments (with their associated costs). Montel has recently produced a report as to curtailed renewables in GB and Ireland, which can be downloaded from here. It also contains some shocking statistics, relating to just the first half of 2025.

The highlights (perhaps better described as lowlights) include the fact that Britain saw 4.6TWh of curtailed electricity during those six months, a figure that represents a 15% increase on the same period in 2024. The associated curtailment payments cost us £152m. Northern Scotland accounted for 86% of the total curtailed volume and 76% of the total costs.

The Executive summary asserts that in Scotland alone the amount of wind energy curtailed in the first six months of 2025 could have met the combined electricity demand consumption of all Scottish domestic household consumers over the same period. It’s probably worth making the point that it wouldn’t have done so reliably and without the need for back-up, even had it not been curtailed. Nevertheless, it’s a dramatic and striking piece of information.

The report points out that demand for electricity is greatest in the south of England, yet wind farms are being built in great numbers in Scotland and off its coasts, because those are windier locations than the south of England, and this way the wind farm operators maximise their profits.

The problem is that energy is lost as it is transmitted south, and that problem is exacerbated by the fact that the necessary infrastructure is not in place to cope with the volumes of electricity being (sporadically) produced when the wind is blowing.

The Balancing Mechanism thus involves constraining the Scottish wind farms and turning up gas plants near London. As increasing volumes of wind power come online (and there is no sign of the tsunami of new wind farm applications slowing down) we have reached the absurd situation where in some months the total curtailment of wind power in northern Scotland is almost 50% of what is available. Overall, only 63% of the energy that could have been generated, actually made it to the grid.

As Montel says: “The costs of balancing the system are ultimately fed back to the consumer in the form of a tariff on their energy bills.”

Nevertheless, the Viking Energy wind farm went ahead in Shetland in the face of both logic and massive local opposition (including a Court case). Its performance to date has been pathetic, to say the least. On 19^th April 12025 Shetland News reported thus:

What was promoted as the UK’s “most productive onshore wind farm” is turning out to be one of the country’s most poorly performing.

Rather than producing electricity at a load factor of around 50 per cent, as forecast and promoted by owner SSE Renewables, the Viking Energy wind farm has so far been churning out electricity at a rate of just 17 per cent of what is potentially possible….

…The £600 million wind farm in the central mainland of Shetland is standing idle for long periods due to constraints and bottlenecks in the national grid network.

The Viking wind farm ranked third for the highest amount of energy going unused in the UK in 2024…[despite becoming operational only late in the summer of 2024].

One might have thought that hard data of this sort would have given both renewable energy companies and the authorities pause for thought, but it seems not. I suppose renewable energy companies aren’t dismayed by this information – they make money whether they generate power or whether they are paid to switch off.

The problem going forward is that the roll-out of wind projects in Scotland is, as noted above, not expected to slow down. Should all currently anticipated projects be completed then Scottish wind generation capacity would be increased threefold. If local flexibility and grid capacity remain at current levels, then curtailment volumes and costs could rise by a similar order of magnitude, and this could continue to drive up consumer bills.

We used to have an excellent system for generating electricity and getting it to the places where it was needed.

Gas- and coal-fired power stations were situated near large population centres. It was cheap, not least because it didn’t have artificial (made-up) “carbon prices” loaded onto the fossil fuels that generated it, because it didn’t see significant volumes lost in transmission from remote locations, and because power generators weren’t regularly paid to switch off. It didn’t depend on the vagaries of the weather, and we weren’t dependent on foreigners to help us to keep the lights on.

It didn’t involve massive cost (both financial and environmental) in building pylons and associated infrastructure across swathes of the UK countryside. It didn’t require expensive, toxic, and potentially dangerous (but ultimately ineffectual) battery back-up.

The planning rules didn’t have to be changed to force through developments required by the grid but opposed by sensible local residents. The current system, by contrast, is expensive and dysfunctional.

No sane person would choose to make these changes to replace the cheap, reliable and efficient system we used to rely on. We are increasingly in a mess of our own making, and it’s down to nothing other than quasi-religious dogma. We aren’t listening to the engineers. We aren’t “following the science”. We are making everything worse.