From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
From the Telegraph:
Britain’s wind farm turbines wasted enough energy to power all of London’s homes last year, new figures show.
A record 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind power went to waste in 2025, according to a report from energy analyst Montel – costing billpayers a total of £1.4bn in “curtailment costs”.
This was up 22pc on the year before, as growing strain on the grid prevented wind power from being transported to the cities and towns that need it most.
This results in so-called curtailment costs, which are paid to wind farms when they are asked to switch off.
At the same time, grid operators must call on gas plants to step in and keep the lights on with replacement power, often at great expense.
Analysts said that wind farms in Scotland were largely to blame.
Montel’s report said: “The amount of renewable electricity curtailed in Great Britain in 2025 (10TWh) could have met the combined electricity demand of every domestic household in London for the entire year.
“Northern Scotland has seen the most curtailment by far. Over 8.8TWh of wind power in northern Scotland was switched off, enough to also power all Scottish domestic electricity demand for the year.”
The cost of curtailment has been growing as Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, rolls out more renewable energy sources – such as wind and solar.
As well as paying wind developers, Montel said solar farms are also being asked to switch off because of bottlenecks.
Montel said: “Solar curtailment costs rose over the year to total over £252,000. While this is substantially lower than the corresponding figures for wind, it represents a rise from the negligible costs associated with solar curtailment in 2024.”
To combat curtailment, regulator Ofgem has approved plans for the UK’s three transmission operators – National Grid, Scottish Power and SSE – to spend up to £90bn on new lines and substations.
Full story here.
The cost is actually overstated, because we would still need to pay for one lot of electricity anyway.
As the Telegraph states, this is essentially a Scottish problem, as there is not enough transmission capacity to carry all the wind power south when it is windy. But naively, they then go on to say that OFGEM are spending £90 billion on grid upgrades to deal with this problem.
Plainly we are not going to spend £90 billion to save less than a billion a year. The upgrades are necessary to make the grid Net Zero ready, not just to connect Scottish wind farms.
What nobody at the Telegraph seems to have realised is that by 2030, or whenever Labour’s Clean Power Plan is rolled out, there will be many days when there is more wind and solar power generated than we can actually use.
No amount of new transmission lines will change this simple fact.
NESO analysed this problem in detail, when they reviewed Miliband’s plan in 2024. They calculated that we would have to throw away 83 TWh of surplus renewable energy – incl 61 TWh which they hope to sell at a loss, which is highly optimistic given that Europe will also be awash with surplus wind power.
https://www.neso.energy/document/346781/download
They estimate that we might get £40/MWh for these surplus exports, a loss of £39/MWh. Conversely we will pay £89/MWh when we need to import!
If we cannot export any surplus, the cost of annual curtailment would be £6.6 billion, based on the average wind/solar price of £79/MWh. That is now an understatement, given the latest CfD auctions.
Annual wind generation is projected to be 245 TWh, so we will end up throwing away a third of it.
Just consider today, for example.
Wind is currently supplying 43% of our electricity.
Miliband wants to triple that, which will give us 51 GW and 129% of total demand. Add on the 8% from nuclear, which cannot be switched on and off, and we get 137%.
It’s hard to think of a more crackpot way to run an energy system!
Solar farms are being asked to turn off? In the UK? Really?
When I visited London recently it was almost constantly dark or gloomy. I saw some solar panels and i thought it was either a joke or somebody had lost a bet.
I live on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and I want to know the secret of how to get solar panels in that part of the world to work at all let alone work so well they need to be turned off.
It has nothing to do with actual production of electricity, it is called gaming the system.
There is literally no method of measuring solar production in the U.K.
The yellow graph depicting solar power generation on Grid Watch is a computer generated estimate.
It is very likely, as solar panels in the UK would mostly have output when it is not needed, on the very nice weather days in summer.
It costs money to stop floods, disease, crime, pollution, along with wind and solar.
The great thing about solar panels on rooftops and other micro installations is you don’t know if they are working or not. They could be greenwashing billboards, an advertisement, or a wasteful use (uneconomic decision) of an inheritance or money windfall from another unrelated source. In the latter case, ROI is out the window.
Is there any alternative to using the MSM as a source..?
Yes. But you do have to know where to look on any particular subject and weigh up any biases just the same. A bit like using AI, I suppose.
There are a lot of people on Youtube, for example, with channels and YT has got the BBC worried…
BBC to make shows for YouTube in landmark new deal
It’d be cheaper to add some storage near the wind farms to spread out the load and reduce the impact of the variability.
It would be even cheaper to abandon the whole idea altogether.
And far more sensible.
The ship be sinking and the rats keep getting paid for getting off the ship. Madness.
The BESS units being added are not being used for Storage, they are paying for themselves using 15 min slots buying and selling using arbitrage. NESO are promoting them as Grid Enertia providers not for storage. They know from the Spain brownout the requirements for high renewables usage in the Grid.
The British are most inventive with words and obfuscation.
‘NESO is promoting BESS units as Grid Inertia providers’.
Translation into English: NESO will spend BIG BUCKS by adding inertia in the form of ‘synchronous condensers’ – spinning inertia which is not part of generation, but which are flywheels spun up to provide the ride-through which is naturally present in Rankine power plants. More money and more energy wasted. The intermittent renewable energy system is nothing but one bandaid after another. These problems exist only in an IRE system.
And what sort of storage might that be? The product of many farms can be stored for future use, such as wheat, stored in silos. Even fruits and vegetables from farms can be stored for many days in refrigerators then trucked to stores where you buy them where they last for many days. But there are no silos nor refrigerators nor store shelves for electricity. Batteries are a very expensive storage of sorts for electricity but they work only for a few hours, not days, or months. So what sort of electricity storage would you suggest?
It’s Scotland so pumped hydro would be an option but batteries would be good too. They’ve become cheap enough that they’re increasingly becoming the storage of choice. You need to remember their function isn’t to store days worth of energy, it’s to store excess energy generated when the transmission lines are at capacity and supply the energy when they’re not.
The Scots are starting to object to the industrialisation of the Highlands.
83 TWh ….
At about 100 billion for 1 TWh of lithium-ion batteries, that comes to 8.3 trillion pounds.
Of course, we may have to send in tanks and fighter-jets to stop other countries getting the lithium that we would need for that, as we would need about 10% of the world’s reserves just for us.
These are all just rough figures, but give an idea of the scale and cost.
Thats irrelevant. The function of the batteries would be to alleviate the issue with constraint.
Have you looked at a UK wind energy output chart?
This from GridWatch
This from https://grid.iamkate.com/
The constraint issue is less about the total UK wind output and more about the transmission capacities.
” ….. wind farms in Scotland were largely to blame.”
It isn’t the fault of the wind farms, it is the fault of the idiots in Westminster who insist in ordering the things to be built and the idiots in Holyrood who follow those orders.
Story Tip: GM to Discontinue the Bolt in Favor of an ICE Crossover
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/01/23/general-motors-to-shut-down-production-of-chevrolet-bolt-ev-to-build-gas-powered-cars/
All that free energy, going to waste. BUT WAIT, it’s not actually just going to waste, we’re paying for it to be dumped!
But it’s ok. Only £90 billion is required to get it shifted to where we can use it. I wonder how much more it’ll cost to keep it until we can actually use it?
All this free energy is becoming quite expensive, isn’t it, Nick?
Nick? Anyone seen Nick….?
Please, please, please don’t challenge them. I think they could manage it!
2026 UK Macro Outlook: Risks Aplenty As ‘Doom Loom’ Continues – Pepperstone
More taxes, more borrowing and… more unemployment
UK unemployment could hit 11-year high in 2026, economists warn – Business Matters
Not exactly what you would expect from the lean, green, clean and booming economy we were promised. Or is it? I think it is. While Labour cling on to the world of 2016, events in 2026 have left them trailing in the wake of new AI driven globalist priorities…
Davos’ climate resignation – Politico
Rather like having the rug pulled from under one. But fear not, mad Ed is the high priest’s high priest, a man who will do whatever it takes to follow his credo, his truth. That continues unabated:
With this record wind power auction, we’ve proved the rightwing doubters wrong Ed Miliband – Guardian
As for the bills, the only way is up.
If only there was some way of figuring this stuff out beforehand.
The real problem is that wind requires such a large overbuild to provide power when the wind is slow, that when the wind is really pumping, it must be curtailed. That is just an added cost that should be included in the overall project expense.
It is why wind providers should be required to meet their contacted supply and the means of doing so is up to them, not the consumers. if the wind farms have to pay for the coal, gas, nuclear plants to bridge the gap, I bet we would see a whole lot less wind. Solar should be included in this also.
In this case the real problem is the overbuild has exceeded the capacity of the transmission system to get the power to where its consumed.
the overbuild has exceeded the capacity of the transmission system
It is really a design problem. Boiler fired power plants are designed to achieve sufficient power to supply maximum when demand requires it. They can be throttled when demand falls. Wind turbine farms are designed to meet maximum demand when generation is at a low point. It guarantees that there will be a large amount of time when the generation exceeds what is needed. Ratepayers end up subsidizing through curtailment pricing, the overprovision of capacity.
If markets were run with such that there were minimum costs to the ratepayer, the wind and solar investors would disappear overnight. Bankruptcies would proliferate.
The variability of wind not matching demand isn’t the problem. The problem was stated in the article
If the energy could be sent South, it could be used but instead the transmission system was at capacity and the energy needed to be wasted. Meanwhile gas had to cover the demand where it was needed.
The doesn’t mean the transmission line was the problem. If it is carrying what it was designed for, then it is working properly.
Intermittent production from wind farms is not a matter of one moment max output and the next no output (although that can occur). Intermittency means variable in a non-predictable manner.
The problem is that the wind farm was installed to meet its capacity value, say 30% because of intermittent output. This means its nameplate capacity is way over what it produces over time. This also means that it will produce more at certain time which could overload the transmission line.
If you are saying that the transmission line should have been built or upgraded to meet the maximum output of the wind farm, then you must make the case why. You must address the economic issue of overbuilding both the wind farm and transmission line in order to accept maximum output while knowing full well that the average usage is maybe 30%.
That’s exactly what is meant.
Quote: “The amount of renewable electricity curtailed in Great Britain in 2025 (10TWh) could have met the combined electricity demand of every domestic household in London for the entire year.
Absolutely untrue. Even if they spent the £90 billion for the transmission lines, The intermittancy of the wind power would prevent it from powering London.
When costs of operation, backup, and initial manufacturing of the wind power system are included, this defines an energy cost that exceeds the possible power generation of the system. It is an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine whose complexity hides the fact that it is a net energy consumer, not an energy source.
“Wind is currently supplying 43% of our electricity.”
Wind is NOT supplying 43% of customer instantaneous demand…that would be electric service.
Electric service is the ability to intantly provide voltage, frequency, stability, and instant customer equipment demand when called upon.
Wind, and solar, cannot deliver electric service.
…. Unless it has on-site running make-up energy and capacity to provide reliable, automatic generation (batteries for short time..hours), that match frequency, voltage, reactances of the transmission grids and also have short interruption carry-through (large rotating generators) .
Wind has holes in delivery: unpredictable wild variations in voltage, frequency, current, and power factor….it cannot supply homes or factories or health care or every other requirement of electric service.
Please do not relate wind/solar to “enough to power millions of homes”.
It cannot.
Only the media, government , and self-interested parties distort, lie, misrepresent….let’s not follow along.
It’s just crazy to pay windmills and solar to stop sending electricity to the grid.
They should only be paid for the electricity they deliver.
Scary stories about CO2 have driven some people insane. Then they do stupid things like trying to power society with windmills and solar.
Okay there is a problem with the title of the article which is the thing that troll Nick Stokes can we please start using the UK operator terms to stop the troll. The message is fine but the title is wrong.
Types of Payments & Generators
Gas Generators (Turn-Up Costs): The largest share of constraint payments, often over 70%, goes to gas plants to ramp up power when renewables are curtailed, ensuring supply meets demand.Wind Farms (Turn-Down Costs): Paid to reduce or stop output (curtailment) when the grid can’t handle excess wind energy, particularly from Scotland to England, due to transmission limits.Solar Farms: Also receive payments for curtailment, though often less prominent in reports than wind.
Constraint payments are for ramp up, curtailment payments are for ramp down … both are because of the intermittent nature of the wind generation paid to different parties.
So the issue is the title is “Constraint Payments Soar to New Record” and the article quoted is about curtailment costs …. not the same thing. Even the picture has the correct words “curtailment payment”.
It isn’t the just the cost to ramp up gas plants to fill in the holes made by erratic wind and solar plants, its that many of these gas plants must be kept in hot standby so they are ready to ramp. Hot standby or the alternate, very low power output, is a very inefficient way to support the grid because gas turbines are notoriously fuel inefficient at part load. Some require up to 40% of their full power fuel consumption just to stay ready to ramp. We pay for all of that. A more reasonable way to use wind and solar electricity on a grid is to require the wind/solar operator to provide the backup themselves for all of their production so they can guarantee a specified level of production at all times the way coal, gas and nuclear plants do. That way, the full cost of a wind or solar project would be known in advance. This approach, will never be implemented because a thorough analysis would show that the cost of the wind/solar/gas system would be twice or thrice that of an equivalent gas-only system. Hence Warren Buffett’s comment that wind and solar electricity make no sense without the subsidies, all of them.
If you think fixing the title is going to stop Nick, you don’t know him very well 🙂 But it is a good idea to get the facts right.
If hoards of subsidy money needs to be wasted on intermittent wind and solar, at the very least storeage systems must be built at the same time. If not there has to be duplicate back up system to stop the lights going out. Do our administrators have no brains?
They have no technical knowledge or understanding of what they do, or a more likely possibility, they ignore what they know or could know if they looked for the knowledge. They are seeking their own political and employment gain. Also, there is no known storage system for electricity that is effective and affordable. In two places I am aware of, El Hierro Island (Spain) and King Island (Australia) wind and solar systems have been tried for all grid electricity. Both have small populations. Both have failed. They have, need and use diesel backups and much of the high cost of their systems is paid for by the home country. The only ways to make affordable CO2-almost-free electricity is either nuclear fission or hydro. Hydro assets are nearly fully subscribed in most countries as it is and the US greens are forcing shut down of many of them. In a few places, Norway for example, nearly all of electricity is made by hydro because they have many dammed rivers and a small population. The costs of Norway’s hydro systems are ironically paid for by the country’s sale of north sea oil and gas. Fusion remains an unrealistic dream as it has been for decades, but maybe – $$$…
Building grid transmission capacity for energy that is unreliably available is probably not economic.
Yes, it is a fact.
Wind and solar are intermittent. BIG SURPRISE.
There is too much when you do not want it, and not enough when you do. Using batteries or pumped hydro, not enough can be stored to make a real difference.
All this is well known to everyone, but talking about it would shame bureaucratic carrots.
VOLTaire was correct when he pointed out the danger of being right when the government is wrong.
Renewables inject instability into the grid due to their intermittent and fluctuating operation. Batteries are introduced to primarily compensate for some of the instability caused. Transmission and control systems are needed to connect to and compensate for the generation and stabilisation systems. It is an engineering delight to be given the challenge to create something to destabilise a formerly perfectly good operational grid and then to have to attenuate the instability with more systems.
A big toy for grid engineers but at what cost to industry and consumers. A total waste of investment that could be better used in beneficial life enhancement technologies.
Only crappy government could see the benefit of this.
Stupid!! Coal, gas, nuclear, hydro. None of these get paid to turn off generation. Only solar and wind. Like the book of the month club. Charging you for books you never asked for unless you pay them to stop sending.
We need solar to keep the lights on in daytime.
Setting aside the many other issues, these payments encourage the construction of facilities in places from where it isn’t possible to deliver the “goods” to the market. If operators were told that they would only be paid for what they can actually deliver, they wouldn’t be so keen on building facilities in the middle of nowhere.
If I were to build a water reservoir for London on the island of Skye, where there is plenty of water, and ask government for payment for the water I was unable to deliver to London because the government hadn’t built the required plumbing, how would government respond?