£60m for wind farms... to close

WIND farm operators have been handed nearly £60million to shut down turbines in Scotland since the start of the year.

This happens when it is too windy – or the creaking National Grid cannot absorb the amount of energy they generate.

The farms received almost £22million for switching off their turbines for 13 days during Storms Ciara and Dennis, Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) analysis found.

The payments were meant to fall and eventually end with the opening of the £1billion Western Link interconnector, which takes Scotland’s excess energy south of the Border. But the subsea cable between

Hunterston, Ayrshire, and Deeside in north Wales, tripped on January 10, meaning the National Grid had to ask for turbines to shut down – leading to millions in constraint payments to wind farms.

Even after the cable was operational again on February 7, the National Grid could not deal with the energy and asked for turbines to shut down between February 8 and 20.

Since the start of 2020, there have been 24 days when constraint payments topped £1million. Although it is the National Grid that forks out, the sums are added to consumers’ electricity bills.

REF Scottish policy adviser Helen McDade called the payments a ‘perverse incentive’, adding: ‘There is growing concern about the value for money of the Western Link.’

Industry body Scottish Renewables said the payments are a ‘normal part of the overall efficient management of our electricity system’. Director of policy Morag Watson said they were a result of the ‘limitations of the UK’s ageing energy infrastructure’.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Grid investment has not yet been able to fully deliver where it is needed.’