December 7, 2013
Scotland

£100k payout for turbines

Scottish Daily Mail | 7 December 2013 |

Operators of eight Scots wind farms were paid £105,340 to shut down during Thursday’s storms – because it was too windy.

Companies get so-called ‘constraint payments’ when they have to temporarily shut down turbines and these are bankrolled by householders through energy bills.

In exceptionally windy conditions, the creaking National Grid simply cannot cope with the extra energy that turbines produce.

Dr Lee Moroney of the Renewable Energy Foundation, the charity which supplied the data, said: ‘It is unacceptable that consumers are being fleeced in this way.’

A Scottish Renewables spokesman said: ‘National Grid figures show that renewables met the equivalent of 100 per cent of electricity needs on Thursday, with 71 per cent coming from wind power.’


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/12/07/1ook-payout-for-turbines/