Mastodawn

The madness of the UK's energy system is summed up in the £55m paid to wind farm operators in the last couple of months to cease generation (temporarily) because the energy interconnection (distribution) system was unable to handle the electricity transfer from generation to use; at the same time £217m was paid (mainly to gas-based generators) to make up the shortfall in renewable energy the congested network caused.

The network build-out needs to be accelerated!

#energy
h/t Observer

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Earth Notes 1d ago

@ChrisMayLA6 Transmission rather than distribution in the main, I think.

This shows it very nicely in real time with the "Curtailment Filter" on:

https://renewables-map.robinhawkes.com/

GB Renewables Map

Live map showing realtime renewable energy generation in Great Britain

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Havoc BSc MSc 💚1d ago

@EarthOrgUK @ChrisMayLA6 many Scottish wind farms in curtailment, due to the lack of infrastructure to get the energy south I presume. And yet, there are proposals to build a nuclear plant in... Scotland 🙄

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Raymond Russell

@Havoc_online @EarthOrgUK @ChrisMayLA6

Absolutely
The Tories went full NIMBY with onshore wind in England when in power creating a de facto ban thru planning regs. It has distorted the location of wind generation so much that multi-billion £ transmission cables are now needed to move excess capacity south.

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Earth Notes 1d ago

@raymierussell @Havoc_online @ChrisMayLA6 We are building ~10GW of extra transmission across the England/Scotland B6 order (and B2) and I doubt that we'd have built all of that equivalent (allowing for capacity factor) wind in England by now, though it was cowardly short-termism to block what would have happened. And at this rate any interconnections to (say) Iceland or the US are likely to have to land in England!