According to Sky on 28 February 2023:
UK consumers are paying hundreds of millions of pounds to turn wind turbines off because the grid cannot deal with how much electricity they make on the windiest days.
The cables that transfer the power from the north to the south can’t safely deal with the amount of power the turbines generate on some days. The National Grid paid £215m to get them shut off last year – a cost that eventually ends up on people’s bills.
https://news.sky.com/story/britons-paying-hundreds-of-millions-to-turn-off-wind-turbines-as-network-cant-handle-the-power-they-make-on-the-windiest-days-12822156
How much does the UK spend on electricity?
£18.8 billion.
The charge to stop the wind turbines?
£210 million or 1.14%.
Might that be a good investment in anticipation of the UK Government improving England’s grid infrastructure?
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 
This is all about ‘shareholder value’, the iniquitous paradigm that has destroyed any social or communitarian considerations by businesses: profit and greed is all.
So, if the cables to England cannot cope, why not invest and improve them or invest in electricity storage schemes?
But that would reduce profits and hence ‘shareholder value’. From the profiteering point of view switching off the turbines is cheaper and has less impact on ‘shareholder value’.
The other reason for the article is to continue the drip feeding of ‘green is bad’ stories on behalf of the oil and gas companies. Look at what their “shareholder value” is currently!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Excess energy should be directed to pump storage and or hydrogen production in Scotland.
The problem we have is that,so called,energy policy is directed by an organisation with an Anglo centric view who only see how our energy resources can be utilised to benefit English enterprises.
We need to rethink how we deliver and utilise our renewables in order to maximise the benefits to Scotland as a whole.
With Westminster being in charge of Scotland’s energy policy,that simply won’t happen.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Around 1964/65 when I was at school, preparing for my Higher Grade Physics and Chemistry, we used to get lectures once a fortnight from academics about current issues. One of the lectures was based on the recently devised, “Salter’s Ducks”, which were a way of extracting energy from waves and converting it to electricity.
The thesis was that a long array of these anchored between Barra Head and somewhere west of Kintyre would generate huge amounts of electricity and rather than transfer the electricity ashore the electricity would be used in situ to electrolyse sea water to produce hydrogen, which would be pumped into gas container ships anchored at the offshore electrolysis rigs and these would bring the gas ashore at ports on the west coast and put into the existing gas pipelines.
The science was ‘watertight’ (pun intended!) and with offshore oil and gas exploration getting underway, the still existing shipyard labour force on the Clyde could be retrained to build and maintain the ‘ducks’, rigs, and container ships and Scotland could have a clean ‘hydrogen economy’.
Of course a combination of the coal, gas and oil industry opposed this kind of thinking. Since Coal, Gas and Electricity was nationalised in those days the trade unions were also hostile and the idea was pooh-poohed.
Indeed, one of the subsequent lectures we had was by an engineer from the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) who told us all this ‘alternative energy’ crap was fantasy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’d still been in Primary at the time, but do remember those “Salter’s Ducks” being featured on BBC Scotland news pieces, the days when black and white journalism in colour ruled, long before the Dishonourable Sarah Smith changed the broadcaster’s remit to “Nicola ate my hamster” mode in puce, and the non-existent email reader took over hoping everyone had forgotten – We didn’t James !
The news where you are, tough shit.
Despite “Salter’s Ducks” being dumped for commercial (and probably technical) reasons, it stimulated further research into how best to harness wave energy at the cusp of the oil boom, and survived even if it was in academia – No mean feat considering the vested generation interests feeling their monopoly under threat and governments obsessing over revenues rather than the public good.
The other striking aspect of the 1960s was the demise of nationally funded energy conservation strategies, again spurred by HMG greed over prospective revenues, but this is a HUGE hobby horse of mine, why waste energy ?
Today with a wholly manufactured energy crisis by “the markets” (copyright Tories) where are we today, 60 odd years later ?
– “There’s nothing we can do, that’s just global markets” – Despite the UK being the most energy productive nation on the planet, and Scotland in particular ?
Contrast-
– Even with only 5cm external insulation and double glazing to my home in Romania at down to to -16c last year (and this) and an actual war going on in Ukraine 100m away and a dependency in parts of the EU on Russian gas, my TOTAL energy bill for 2021-22 was less than 900 quid with government interventions to stabilise household bills – Even were that intervention to cease and it were to double to 1,800 quid a year, just where the hell does this “£3,280 for a dual fuel household paying by direct debit based on typical consumption” even come from ?
A Tent?
LikeLike
By way of reprise my WordPress accounts have subsequently developed a “Glitch”… Who knew the 77th or a Tory sub-sub-subcontractor to SubLt(failed) Bowie could quite be so “sensitive”….
LikeLike
🤣
LikeLike
It’s stopped…
And no, I wasn’t having a Craig Murray moment…
LikeLike
A long array of “Salter’s Ducks” anchored between Barra Head and somewhere west of Kintyre would generate huge amounts of electricity and rather than transfer the electricity ashore the electricity would be used in situ to electrolyse sea water to produce hydrogen, which would be pumped into gas container ships anchored at the offshore electrolysis rigs and these would bring the gas ashore at ports on the west coast and put into the existing gas pipelines.
The science was ‘watertight’ (pun intended!) and with offshore oil and gas exploration getting underway, the still existing shipyard labour force on the Clyde could be retrained to build and maintain the ‘ducks’, rigs, and container ships and Scotland could have a clean ‘hydrogen economy’.
We were told all this in around 1964/65 when I was at school and preparing for my Higher Grade Physics and Chemistry, when we used to get lectures once a fortnight from academics about current issues. Strathclyde University was very close and they could nip across quite easily. One of the lectures was based on “Salter’s Ducks”, which were a way of extracting energy from waves and converting it to electricity.
Of course a combination of the coal, gas and oil industry opposed this kind of thinking. Since Coal, Gas and Electricity was nationalised in those days the trade unions were also hostile and the idea was pooh-poohed.
Indeed, one of the subsequent lectures we had was by an engineer from the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) who told us all this ‘alternative energy’ crap was fantasy.
Of course a combination of the coal, gas and oil industry opposed this kind of thinking. Since Coal, Gas and Electricity was nationalised in those days the trade unions were also hostile and the idea was pooh-poohed.
Indeed, one of the subsequent lectures we had was by an engineer from the South of Scotland Electricity Board (SSEB) who told us all this ‘alternative energy’ crap was fantasy.
LikeLike
Grid capacity is NOT the reason for turning off turbines, but balancing energy on the “National” Grid – You can’t simply switch off a gas or nuclear power generator, but thousands of wind gennies under remote control can be switched off individually.
The Sky quote from Hannah Thomas-Peter is total claptrap – Whether the gennies run or not they get paid if they are available, that’s how the UK’s energy market works.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why not shut down some of the hydro and gas burning stations if there is such a huge surplus of wind power?
The hydro stations can be back in service in seconds.
LikeLike
I suspect the hydro stations are turned off when “excess” electricity is being generated eg by windy conditions since their power source can be stored in a way wind cannot. However their contribution is relatively minor (at the UK scale).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Even Hydro has to be incrementally shut down to avoid damage.
They are also are paid a rate when not producing but available, it’s just the way the system works..
However, Alasdair’s penultimate comment is the reason “windmills” are Sky’s focus, and worth repeating –
“The other reason for the article is to continue the drip feeding of ‘green is bad’ stories on behalf of the oil and gas companies. Look at what their “shareholder value” is currently! “
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why not charge the end-users to upgrade the infrastructure?
Oh, that would involve the Londoners and Home Counties actually paying for the power they consume.
And THAT would NEVER do!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Would they prefer there to be too LITTLE energy – then they could hike their prices even more !
LikeLiked by 1 person
Probably…
LikeLike