An example of the criminal insanity of ‘net zero’ – Britain’s wind farm turbines wasted enough energy to power all of London’s homes last year
‘net zero’ equates to ‘net zero’ economic activity.
PETER HALLIGAN
From here:
Constraint Payments Soar to New Record – Watts Up With That?
Referencing this article:
Turbines waste enough wind power to supply all of London
“Britain’s wind farm turbines wasted enough energy to power all of London’s homes last year, new figures show. A record 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind power went to waste in 2025, according to a report from energy analyst Montel – costing billpayers a total of £1.4bn in “curtailment costs”.
“Montel’s report said: “The amount of renewable electricity curtailed in Great Britain in 2025 (10TWh) could have met the combined electricity demand of every domestic household in London for the entire year.
“Northern Scotland has seen the most curtailment by far. Over 8.8TWh of wind power in northern Scotland was switched off, enough to also power all Scottish domestic electricity demand for the year.”
The cost of curtailment has been growing as Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, rolls out more renewable energy sources – such as wind and solar.”
“To combat curtailment, regulator Ofgem has approved plans for the UK’s three transmission operators – National Grid, Scottish Power and SSE – to spend up to £90bn on new lines and substations. Plainly we are not going to spend £90 billion to save less than a billion a year. The upgrades are necessary to make the grid Net Zero ready, not just to connect Scottish wind farms.”
“NESO analysed this problem in detail, when they reviewed Miliband’s plan in 2024. They calculated that we would have to throw away 83 TWh of surplus renewable energy – incl 61 TWh which they hope to sell at a loss, which is highly optimistic given that Europe will also be awash with surplus wind power.
“They estimate that we might get £40/MWh for these surplus exports, a loss of £39/MWh. Conversely we will pay £89/MWh when we need to import!
If we cannot export any surplus, the cost of annual curtailment would be £6.6 billion, based on the average wind/solar price of £79/MWh. That is now an understatement, given the latest CfD auctions. Annual wind generation is projected to be 245 TWh, so we will end up throwing away a third of it.
“Wind is currently supplying 43% of our electricity. Miliband wants to triple that, which will give us 51 GW and 129% of total demand. Add on the 8% from nuclear, which cannot be switched on and off, and we get 137%. It’s hard to think of a more crackpot way to run an energy system!”
The above calculates ‘curtailment costs for 2025 which were 20 per cent higher than 2024 costs.
Here’s how Brave AI describes these costs:
“Curtailment costs for wind farms are defined as the financial expenses incurred when grid operators instruct wind farms to reduce or cease electricity generation, despite being capable of producing power. These costs arise primarily from constraint payments made to wind farm operators to compensate for lost revenue due to curtailment. In the UK, this compensation is often tied to the wind farm’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) strike price, ensuring they are paid for the energy they would have generated, even if it is not fed into the grid.
The Contracts for Difference (CfD) strike price for Allocation Round 7 (AR7) offshore wind projects was £91/MWh in 2024 prices, securing a record 8.4 GW of capacity. The strike price is set to be indexed over 20 years, providing long-term financial certainty for developers. Independent analysis suggests that a strike price below £94/MWh would be cost-neutral or beneficial for consumers, as it would reduce overall energy bills compared to gas generation.
The UK government prohibits the release of the cost of gas fired electricity – cementing the fraudulent government ‘net zero’ price fixing cartel.
“Thus, while the unadjusted wholesale cost of gas-fired electricity is not available in the data, it is driven primarily by the cost of gas, which is currently 5.93 pence per kWh under the cap, with the electricity price reflecting both fuel and market dynamics. As of January 2026, the wholesale electricity price in the UK is approximately £45 per megawatt-hour (MWh), which equates to roughly 4.5 pence per kWh.
“The costs are further defined by two main components:
· Payments to wind farms to turn down output (e.g., £380 million in 2025).
· Replacement generation costs for the lost power, typically covered by dispatching more expensive gas plants or other flexible sources (e.g., £1.08 billion in 2025).
Gas plants are far cheaper than wind turbines so this is blatant misdirection – the price for gas is a fabrication of price fixing by applying ‘net zero taxes (and a carbon border adjustment tax to comply with the EU regulations)taxes and other ‘levelized costs’!
“These costs are ultimately passed on to consumers through Balancing Services Use of System (BSUoS) charges, which contribute to higher household and business electricity bills. The economic impact is amplified when curtailment occurs during periods of low demand and high wind, leading to negative market prices and increased system instability. While wind farms are compensated to maintain revenue stability, the overall system cost rises due to the need to replace clean, zero-marginal-cost energy with fossil-fuel-based generation.
More misdirection! There is no “clean, zero-marginal-cost energy” – it is dirty and high marginal cost to ‘fire up idled (no wind or sun) renewables (wind power and solar. –
Had the fossil fuel based generation been used with no renewables at all, the marginal cost of fossil fuels would be zero and thee would be no curtailment costs inncurred!
Which rather begs the question “why can’t this combination of £90 billion in investment plus surplus wind energy be used to provide “free electricity? The answer is “physics!”. Battery storage is supposed to provide the answer, but the technology does not yet exist.
The £90 billion in retrofitting the grid is going straight down the toilet after as much as possible has ben recovered/ripped off from Britain’s 30 million households and millions of small, medium and large businesses!
Mad Miliband wants ‘net zero’ activity!!!
The UK’s insane energy policy inevitably leading to rolling black-outs and energy rationing in five years because of careless Ignorance and stupidity are detailed here:
Electrification – Can the Grid Cope? – Kathryn Porter’s Report from Watt-Logic
Onwards!
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This article (An example of the criminal insanity of ‘net zero’ – Britain’s wind farm turbines wasted enough energy to power all of London’s homes last year) was created and published by Peter Halligan and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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