Two Wind Farms Received Over $100 Million To Switch Off
Regular readers will know that I have long been concerned over the extraordinary level of payments to wind farms to switch off.
These so-called ‘constraint payments’ are deemed necessary when the wires in the transmission grid have inadequate capacity to get a generator’s power to market. [emphasis, links added]
When that happens, the wind farm (and it is always a wind farm) is paid to switch off, and a gas-fired power station is paid to switch on so that the end user of the electricity is not left short.
This is particularly a problem for wind farms in Scottish waters because there is relatively little transmission capacity running across the border to England, where most of the power users are found.
In 2022, I noted that the offshore wind farm called Moray East had spent 25% of the previous year switched off. The suspicion is that there may be perverse incentives for developers to build wind farms in Scotland precisely so they receive constraint payments.
With a large new offshore wind farm called Seagreen coming on stream in 2023, I was interested to see how things had developed. The data, taken from the Renewable Energy Foundation, is revealing.
Figure 1 shows that the total payments to wind farms have risen to £303 million [$382M] off a constrained volume of 4.3 terawatt hours. That’s roughly four days’ electricity demand thrown away entirely.
Figure 1: Windfarm constraint payments
And if we break down the 2023 bill, we can see that once again it is the canny Scots who are the big beneficiaries (Figure 2), with Moray East getting an extraordinary £43 million [$54M], and Seagreen (as expected) not far behind at £39 million [$49M].
Figure 2: Windfarm constraint payments 2023
Moray East’s constrained volume is 590 GWh, which will represent something like 20% of its output. Seagreen’s is 759 GWh, which will be somewhat higher.
Interestingly, payments to Moray East’s neighbor, Beatrice, have fallen away sharply, from £33 million [$42M] in 2022 to just £9 million [$11M] in 2023. I don’t know why this is.
In summary then, the rip-off continues and indeed is getting worse.
Source: CCD
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VOWG
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There are no words to describe this level of stupidity.
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Alan
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The words come from the government – “we are working to grow the economy and make you wealthier”.
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Brian Lane
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Corruption, not stupidity
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Jakie
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Yes yes no
Just another Mafia vCon & Dodge.
I believe the American .gov call this Money Laundering..as do their Laws…which they Lead the world on. Simultaneously their Political class leads the World on these kinds of Money Laundering scheme’s. In fact entire Wars are based upon their Money unabashed Money Laundering…Ukraine being example number one. It’s back in the first placeup modus is to Balkanize all of Russia into more manageable political entities to more easily steal their resources…that is to bring back in the global Mafia that created the Soviet Union in the first place. Parasites R’us. Their Avarice is unbound…as us their thirst for youthful Blood and it’s attendant depredations.
They will suck Russia dry of all of its resources and destroy an emergent bastion of freedom… from themselves.
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Wind Energy's Absurd
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Onshore, and offshore developments receive constraint payments. £1,651,912,248 since the Connect & Manage – Balancing Mechanism – scheme began in 2010. There was, and still could be, another raft of constraint payments under Forward Trades, held to be commercially confidential, which consumers pay, but have no idea how much. In 2011, under parliamentary privilege, the sum almost rivalled BM constraints.
Your comment ‘canny Scots’. Mostly, with the exception of SSE, the recipients of constraint money trousered from the pockets of all UK consumers are foreign based.
Moray East, foreign owned, successfully bid for Contracts for Difference, in 2017, which has still not been taken up, the developers making £647 million more, in the period June 21 to end July 22, on market price than if they had taken up the CfD.
Your last sentence looks to be spot on. At 11 February, constraints for this year were over £50 million.
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