Wasted electricity
The Rise and Rise of Curtailed Power
SQUANDERING WIND ENERGY IS ON THE RISE
WASTED ELECTRICITY GROWTH ACCELERATION
PROBLEMS MOUNTING
Consumers are literally paying to throw away clean power. Grid bottlenecks force wind farms to shut down, with curtailment soaring at roughly ~75 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), a staggering rise. Instead of powering homes, this zero-carbon electricity is replaced, often by CO2 emitting fossil-fuel Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) generation plants, with many of them running in low-efficiency open-cycle mode. The real crisis is not a lack of renewable electricity; it is that the grid is not fit for purpose on windy days, and is currently restricted to transmitting a diminishing proportion of the potentially available clean renewable electricity in future years.
By the end of 2025 ~10,000,000 Megawatt-hours (MWh) of wind-power will be Switched-off
In replacement, another ~10,000,000 MWh of gas-fired plant will be Switched-on at 3x the cost
From an economics standpoint, the replacement cost of switching on gas-fired power plants is at least 2-3 times the cost of switching renewable generation off (wind farm operators are paid when curtailed), or the equivalent of ~20,000,000 - 30,000,000 MWh in renewable generation costs terms. Add to that a further economic loss, in that many wind farms in Scotland are now fast accelerating towards becoming stranded assets. Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm is an example: claimed, when originally financed, to have a ~52% Capacity Factor, but now running at less than ~17%. The largest offshore wind farm in Scotland (financed by the Consumer paying £3 Billion) only generates its electricity for ~17% of the time. This is because the local grid network cannot accept the power being generated at times when its too windy, as the power it generates cannot be transported.
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Vast amounts of new clean generation have been built, but a fast growing percentage of it cannot enter the grid. Over the last two decades, the UK has invested almost four times more in new renewables generation than in onshore grid transmission infrastructure upgrades. The result is wasted wind energy, fast-rising CO2 emissions and billions spent addressing a problem created by failing to build the network needed to transport the energy. Yet, we just keep adding new generation, causing the problems to mount. The current plan cannot be considered anything other than 'flawed'.
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SYSTEMIC AND POLICY FAILURE?
This problem is no longer occasional; it is systemic. Every year, more wind farms are added to the network, and more wind farms are instructed to turn off, not because of weather or performance but because, at times, Great Britain's electricity transmission network is full. Those times are also increasing fast.
Curtailment has shifted from a technical footnote to a central structural failure in the modern energy system, costing consumers and taxpayers billions. The frightening part is it is growing at a ~75% CAGR. ​
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Worse still, is that wind farm operators, when curtailed, lose their Contract for Difference (CfD) and Carbon Credit revenue, but are instead compensated directly by the grid, a cost ultimately passed to consumers. These curtailment payments are frequently higher than the CfD and carbon credits they replace, meaning some projects in Scotland are perversely incentivised to sit idle rather than generate. On some occasions it costs consumers up to ten times more turning wind farms off, whilst at the same time turning gas-fired power plant on to balance the network. This is not just a systemic failure; it is a structural policy failure that will persist for many years until either quick solutions are found, or policy changes. This growing problem is also compounding the amount of carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere as we switch on more
gas-fired generation plants. ​
The long-term fix, new power lines, is painfully slow. Planning, permitting, construction and public opposition can delay grid expansion by ~15 years or more.
What about new subsea "bootstrap" cables on the East Coast? Many are planned, but most simply move electricity on a windy day from one area of oversupply to another; none meaningfully deliver power to the South, where the real shortage lies.
Do bootstrap cables help relieve congestion? Only marginally. The Western Link, for example, operates less than ~30 percent of the time, demonstrating that even once installed in ~15 years time, these cables provide limited system value.
Could 'static' energy storage fill the gap? Not at the scale required. Proposed battery systems are tiny relative to the volumes of energy projected to be curtailed in the coming years. Fixed and static pumped-hydro projects are hundreds of miles from customers, with heavy transmission infrastructure upgrades and reinforcements needed to get new build generation to consumers.
So is the planned transmission infrastructure enough? In short, yes and no. But its not just the amount of infrastructure that is the problem - its the type of infrastructure too: The current plan is complete overkill when the wind doesn’t blow, but falls woefully short when it does. Sadly, cables don't have the capability to expand and contract between the thickness of a ship’s mooring rope to the diameter of the Channel Tunnel. A different approach is needed: Mobile, long-duration electricity storage with regeneration of synchronous power at grid scale is needed to get energy back in the grid where it is needed.
Balancing Mechanism Wind Farm Curtailments 2010-2024 (GWh)
Source: Renewable Energy Foundation ref.org.uk
​This system failure does not just waste clean electricity; it distorts markets, encourages perverse incentives, inflates consumer bills and undermines national climate goals. Consumers are paying clean generators not to generate while paying CO2 emitting fossil plants to replace them at three times the cost; the country is building wind assets that are switched off and increasingly becoming stranded assets; building cables that do not reach demand centres; and planning storage too far from the very people it is meant to serve. This is not an issue of generation; the UK already knows how to produce clean power at scale. It is a failure of the ability to move power from one place to another.
A new approach is required, one that thinks beyond pylons, re-imagines how electricity can be delivered, and provides a flexible, scalable way to move clean power to where it is needed most. Only by first understanding the problem, then rethinking the solution, can Great Britain escape its wind paradox and finally realise the full value of its renewable resources. The lack of any reasonable logistics plan, policy, design or fast-infrastructure direction for deployment will continue to compound the problem. In the meantime, and until an alternative way of transporting the electricity is found, Consumers' electricity bills will continue to rise at faster and faster rates.
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