A story which broke this week in mainstream media revealed a British wind farm owned by France’s state energy company is being paid to throw away half the power it generates. The Dorenell onshore wind farm in Scotland, owned by EDF, had 50pc of its output “curtailed” in 2024 because the UK’s national grid was too congested to accept it.
However the project was still paid for the electricity that wasn’t used, leading to revenues of nearly £68m in the year, newly published accounts show. This has long been one of the complaints of 'clean green energy' sceptics. Beacuse of the intermittent nature of 'sustainable' energy sources the potential output of all wind farms must far exceed the highest levels of demand. Thus when conditions are favourable some wind generators must be decoupled from the national grid in order that the transformers and load balancing equipment will not be overwhelmed and fail. This is exactly what happened in Spain earlier this year, when grid equipment wrecked by overloads failed, causing a blaxkout lasting several days over a large part of the country.
Around £40m of the revenue earned for EDF by the Dornell wind farm last year came from payments to curtail its output, according to separate disclosures made by EDF in a court dispute.
The payments, which are ultimately incorporated in the cost of electricity to households and businesses, are an example of the grid balancing costs that were blamed this week for driving up domestic energy bills.
Ofgem, the industry regulator, said these types of costs were responsible for around £15 of a £35 increase to the energy price cap due to take effect in October, and dealt a major blow to Ed Miliband’s promise to lower bills by £300 per year and prompted questions about the hugely generous government subsidies handed to wind farms.
Constraint payments occur because most of Britain’s wind farms are located in Scotland and often generate far more electricity than can be used locally.
At the same time, the power network lacks capacity to store all the excess power or to transport it south, where most demand is located. This means grid operators often resort to curtailing the output of wind farms to keep the system balanced.
Renewable subsidies also incentivise wind farms to try to export power. In Dorenell’s case, accounts show the onshore wind farm was paid for 591,164 megawatt hours (MWh) of power in 2024. Only 297,137 MWh of this was actually exported – suggesting 294,027 MWh, or 49pc, was curtailed.
The wind farm has a CfD with an inflation-linked strike price of £82.50 per MWh in 2012 prices, worth about £112 per MWh in current prices.
Sam Taylor, who runs Scottish based UK Unionis think tank These Islands, said the huge amount of curtailment meant Dorenell was effectively paid £227 per MWh for the electricity it actually supplied to the grid last year.
If you're thinking the whole things sounds like economic insanity, you are not the only one,.in what way can being paid not to produce ever be justifiable? Producing to squeeze the proverbial quart into the pint pot was a nonsensical decision at the planning stage driven by dogma rather than need. Dishonesty is the least of it, basic IQ is lacking, verging on malpractice in government which can only by rectified by undoing of these bankrupting policies and payments and the removal of those in charge of this mess, from PM down.
Renewable energy should be self supporting, the subsidies we paying are basically another form of taxation to implement a policy that is looking increasingly unrealistic and imposdible to implement. There is little point in the UK reducing its C02 emissions beyond the 50% we have already achieved when globally these emissions have risen by 60% since we enacted the Climate Change Act.
The necessary changes to the grid and infrastructure to accommodate renewables are forecast to peak at £ 8 billion per year by 2030. We are being lied to and our energy bills will keep increasing, estroying in the process more British businesses and jobs as we become less and less able to compete in world markets
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