Wind Power: Why some wind farms are being paid to stop producing energy

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.
Sky's Hannah Thomas-Peter explains how currently there aren’t enough cables between Scotland and England to transfer wind power to more densely populated areas in the south of the country.
#skynews #windpower #energy
SUBSCRIBE to our KZbin channel for more videos: / skynews
Follow us on Twitter: / skynews
Like us on Facebook: / skynews
Follow us on Instagram: / skynews
Follow us on TikTok: / skynews
For more content go to news.sky.com and download our apps:
Apple itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sky-n...
Android play.google.com/store/apps/de...
Sky News videos are now available in Spanish here/Los video de Sky News están disponibles en español aquí: / @skynewsespanol
Sky News videos are also available in German here/Hier können Sie außerdem Sky News-Videos auf Deutsch finden: / @skynewsaufdeutsch6058
To enquire about licensing Sky News content, you can find more information here: news.sky.com/info/library-sales

[@chickenmadness1732]

beef up the cables then instead of spending money on useless stuff.

[@anchorread68]

@@adiands850 if government doesn't mind then business & people can eventually abandon the south and move north where there's energy. Public utilities are built by local government, if they don't want to build it (road, cable, plumbing) then migration out of the municipal/state is the natural progression of things for many dying cities.

[@ashleigh3021]

Or just make demand reducible and more flexible. Far easier than spending money on transmission.

[@Myrddnn]

Instead of paying them to not produce, use that money to build both storage AND new transmission lines. No brainer.

[@AahFukIt]

It's not that simple. We supply wind energy to a dutch/german energy company, when they can't take anyone they shut off the mills by a text message. Energy could be sold elsewhere, but that's when NGO takes over.

[@Patrick-jj5nh]

vested interests dont want this. fossil fuel and nuclear lobby both would suffer from even cheaper renewable energy as it would push the price for electricity down. we must push past this however and do just this - build both central storage as well as localised storage. pumped hydro is an obvious one for larger, central storage which we could build right now. for localised storage we could copy existing scandinavian systems that heat up sand - yes bog standard sand - which can be made to retain energy in form of heat for months which we could use to heat homes.

[@caesarg5225]

country runned by clowns

[@ashleigh3021]

@@Patrick-jj5nhNo, it’s because it’s incredibly expensive and we don’t really know if it’s worth it. The future is co-located data centres and some storage with renewables and more distributed small-scale generation and flexible demand, only going out to the grid as a last resort.

[@Glasgow_kiss]

use excess wind generated to power hydro stations, use the hydro when wind is low.

[@wuasilekerpici7812]

Genius

[@pierQRzt180]

not enough of them in the UK, otherwise it is already done (pumped hydro)

[@ashleigh3021]

Not easy to build hydro at all, there is a mismatch between the durations, and big line losses to transport to hydro stations. Easier to put a battery, or data centre onsite with the wind/solar farm and turn up the demand to soak up the excess generation, and also avoid line losses.

[@alistairmcleod3924]

excuses, spend some of those billions in profit in infrastructure instead of paying out to shareholders.

[@gedaskarys4509]

Why dont make hydrogen or methen ?

[@DarkShroom]

damn need to use the excess power for somethiing, chemical storage like making hydrogen perhaps if batteries are not economical

[@stevenjones916]

That is the plan.

[@Yuri-bt4wl]

TL, DW: it's a powerlines problem.

[@billp37abq]

US charges wind farms excess power disposal fee, we read.

[@rickyjulian496]

Not to mention smart heaters/immersion heaters that heat when there's an abundance of energy for free up in the land of the free.. Why hasn't this technology been implemented in all new boilers and new homes? Heat the swimming pools, cool the ice rinks, heat or cool the public buildings..plenty of sunny windy days too! The Scottish should be paying a lot less for their electricity. Perhaps the Nicola surgeons replacement will start concentrating on what matters..

[@flemlion13]

That sounds mostly like bad planning to me, too late to adapt the grid to the changes

[@reslllence]

one will always lead the other and its better this way round, whats the point of having loads of infrastructure but no generation capacity?

[@frankieenlacasa5216]

They can just put a special lock mechanic in this fans that once it peaks and they have all the electricity needed it locks automatic 🤔

[@reslllence]

the issue isnt stopping the generation, its the fact the generators need to be compensated as they are guaranteed minimum prices for energy produced to encourage green generators

[@MrTheguywiththemoney]

Just use a gravity battery...

[@Glasgow_kiss]

like hydro?

[@dannylad1600]

Between 9am and 7pm today the grid demands have averaged 40GW. If we relied on a gravity battery like hydro to power just 25% of those power demands throughout those 10 hours we would need about 100 GWH of stored energy, which would be the equivalent of about 70 hydroelectric dams. Not gonna happen.

[@deejay7648]

The world’s largest battery is the hydro battery in Switzerland. It has a capacity of 20,000 MWh. The UK consumes about 330 TWh annually. The Swiss battery could power the UK for 32 minutes. See the problem?

[@akhusal]

Subsidise solar panels with batteries in every home, supermarket, government building, factory, petrol station etc

[@songscoops4205]

Not fit for purpose then..

[@davidrobertsemail]

Extremely expensive and unreliable. Our country is being de industrialized and we are unable to afford electricity to heat our homes.

[@stevenjones916]

Speak for yourself.

[@imranramzan1795]

We just don’t have the infrastructure simples

[@Fish-bw9yh]

Adding the cost of storage "Significantly" adds to the cost of renewables. She mentioned that payments are also made to fossil fuel generators but it's much easier to control them than the wind and sun etc. Just be honest! The cost of moving to net zero will be a major drain on our economy for decades.

[@chrischris8550]

New battery stations should be the norm. But this is the UK and common sense seems to have gone out of the window.

[@stevenjones916]

Do some research, it is being done already.

[@ashleigh3021]

The UK is probably the most advanced region on the planet for battery storage.

[@chrischris8550]

@@ashleigh3021 I somehow doubt it!

[@Pilotpailie]

Wind energy isn’t the answer.

[@grillu5763]

It's not, it's just the transitory solution

[@anchorread68]

it produces soo much energy to the point that we have to pay them to stop feeding us, then IT IS the answer.

[@Pilotpailie]

@@anchorread68 nice grammar.

[@yusufazam3547]

In the UK wind power is the solution. Perhaps not for other countries.

[@stevenjones916]

@@yusufazam3547 Exactly.

[@trancedarkdust90]

We know the problem, we have a solution………..get it done! This needs to be number 2 on government list of things to do. Right after health care. Take that 9 hundred million of saving and solve issue number 1.

[@thetunnelsofcuchi5173]

Energy company’s have made enough money now. Time to reinvest this!

[@thetunnelsofcuchi5173]

@@adiands850 I’m quoting the ones that have made 30billion plus shell etc

[@Chrom35kull]

​@@adiands850mostly brokers, not producers.

[@joependleton6293]

Wind is working, they have excess power they can't use ?

[@grahamebrown7473]

TESLA

[@BillyNoMates1974]

well that worked oout well didn't it ? Could have saved money 20 years ago and forked out for a new Nuke power station instead. No forward thinking yet again

[@mikecohen2400]

Another sign of gross criminal incompetence, large scale lithium battery packs have been in use around the world for years, they are the perfect match for wind, and large scale solar installations, why the UK has not adapted this tech is just incompetence.

[@iareid8255]

Mike, itr is not incompetence but reality. The storage capacity required is far too large to be feasible. Not only that there are relatively few times when wind power is strong, it is usually relatively weak and sometimes near non existent.

[@ashleigh3021]

They have adopted it, plenty of it is being used.

[@franfaiscafumaca]

Oh yeah! They need help the war keep going...

[@donaldalbershardt6854]

Because they Blow Up and Leak up too 400 Gallons of Oil

[@timgriffith9149]

As anyone studied the effects that these farms are having on the trade wind cycles. As it takes an enormous amount of " wind energy " to turn the windmills. As the laws of physics say nothing is free. what is the loss of that energy doing to wind cycles of the earth?

[@Myrddnn]

The scales involved are completely different orders of magnitude.

[@frankieenlacasa5216]

I believe is helping the planet to spin more smooth and it refreshed us with the winds and help us to breathe clen air 😂

[@erutheone6473]

Robbing the poor

[@Mr---mr4ll]

Duh 🙄 because it’s a ummmm Brexit benefit…. Someone tell moggy about it.

[@metalicminer6231]

Try two years of illegal lockdowns. Nothing to do with leaving the unelected EU