Cost of balancing Great Britain’s power grid reaches nearly £50m a day
Source: The Guardian ·
Grid operator is paying huge sums to switch off windfarms in areas of excess electricity generation while turning on gas plants elsewhereThe cost of balancing Great Britain’s power grid has soared to near-record highs of almost £50m a day after windfarms were turned off due to bottlenecks in transmitting power around the country.The grid operator paid £47.9m on Wednesday to turn windfarms off in…
From the source
The cost of balancing Great Britain’s power grid has soared to near-record highs of almost £50m a day after windfarms were turned off due to bottlenecks in transmitting power around the country. The grid operator paid £47.9m on Wednesday to turn windfarms off in areas with an oversupply of electricity and turn gas plants on in areas where supplies were tight. The costs, which are levied on to household energy bills, included a £1.6m payment for one half-hour period, and were some of the highest recorded since the early months of the Ukraine crisis in 2022. They add to the growing costs of balancing the grid, which reached a total of £505m in September alone, the highest monthly cost ever recorded, and are expected to reach £3.2bn over the next year. The costs underline the growing concerns over the pace of Great Britain’s £150bn power networks upgrade, which is failing to keep up with new renewable energy projects being connecting to the grid. Overall, windfarms and hydro power…
BestAIBroker analysis
- Finance-aware sentiment: slightly negative (-0.30 on a -1 to +1 scale).
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