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Title: UK Renewable Energy Firms are Being Paid Huge Sums to Not Provide
Power

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/09/0121...

The U.K. electricity grid "was built to deliver power generated by coal and
gas plants near the country's major cities and towns," reports the BBC, "and
doesn't always have sufficient capacity in the wires that carry electricity
around the country to get the new renewable electricity generated way out in
the wild seas and rural areas. "And this has major consequences." The way the
system currently works means a company like Ocean Winds gets what are
effectively compensation payments if the system can't take the power its wind
turbines are generating and it has to turn down its output. It means Ocean
winds was paid �72,000 [nearly $100,000 USD] not to generate power from its
wind farms in the Moray Firth during a half-hour period on 3 June because the
system was overloaded - one of a number of occasions output was restricted
that day. At the same time, 44 miles (70km) east of London, the Grain gas-
fired power station on the Thames Estuary was paid �43,000 to provide more
electricity. Payments like that happen virtually every day. Seagreen,
Scotland's largest wind farm, was paid �65 million last year to restrict its
output 71% of the time, according to analysis by Octopus Energy. Balancing
the grid in this way has already cost the country more than �500 million this
year alone, the company's analysis shows. The total could reach almost �8bn a
year by 2030, warns the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), the body
in charge of the electricity network. It's pushing up all our energy bills
and calling into question the government's promise that net zero would end up
delivering cheaper electricity... the potential for renewables to deliver
lower costs just isn't coming through to consumers. Renewables now generate
more than half the country's electricity, but because of the limits to how
much electricity can be moved around the system, even on windy days some gas
generation is almost always needed to top the system up. And because gas
tends to be more expensive, it sets the wholesale price. The UK government is
now considering smaller regional markets, so wind companies "would have to
sell that spare power to local people instead of into a national market. The
theory is prices would fall dramatically - on some days Scottish customers
might even get their electricity for free... "Supporters argue that it would
attract energy-intensive businesses such as data centres, chemical companies
and other manufacturing industries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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