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The Czech billionaire buying Royal Mail and energy giant SSE are among the power plant operators being paid millions of pounds when Britain’s wind farms are switched off.
A total of £400m was spent last year on so-called curtailment, when wind turbines are told to stop generating because the grid is too congested to accept their power.
Firing up alternative plants – in many cases gas-fuelled ones – to replace this electricity elsewhere on the system also costs the taxpayer upwards of £600m.
Some wind farm companies are making tens of millions of pounds from the switch-offs, according to analysis for The Telegraph.
They include SSE, which made an estimated £138m in 2024, while Moray wind farms owner Ocean Wind made £92m, French state power company EDF took £25m and Scottish Power, which is owned by Spain’s Iberdrola, another £13m.
SSE also made an estimated £179m from providing replacement gas-fired power generation in the same year, while another £92m was made by EP UK, the energy business owned by Daniel Kretinsky, who is buying Royal Mail for £3.6bn.
German power giant Uniper also made £131m, while Vitol Group’s VPI and Intergen received £89m and £88m respectively.
‘Short-sighted, costly mistake’
It comes amid a row in the energy industry about government proposals to switch from a national electricity pricing system to a regional one – which would eliminate such payments.
Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has been warned by wind farm developers that the controversial changes risk spooking investors and torpedoing his plan for a clean power system by 2030.
The costs of the grid payments, known as “balancing” within the electricity market, are today borne by households and businesses through their bills.
They have surged as Britain’s power system has become more reliant on wind and solar farms with less predictable output, with the amount of renewables installed outpacing the rate of grid upgrades.
This results in frequent situations where there is ample wind power in Scotland but no capacity to send it south, where electricity demand is highest. This forces grid operators to fire up gas plants that are closer to cities instead.
Sam Richards, of Britain Remade, said: “Switching off wind power just to turn on the gas taps is a short-sighted, costly mistake that Britain simply can’t afford.”
The analysis obtained by The Telegraph looked at each time in 2024 when wind farms had their output curtailed. This was compared against plants that were turned up elsewhere, based on Elexon market data.The cost of replacement power was then estimated by using the lowest “turn-up” bids available at the time.