Wind farms have been producing too much energy for cabling infrastructure to handle - and its costing consumers £250million.
Bottlenecks in the UK's electricity cabling network have resulted in wind farms being paid to switch off, and gas plants being paid to replace them.
The Times reports the cost, to consumers, of dealing with these cabling bottlenecks has rocketed by 60% to more than £250million in the first two months of 2025.
The situation has arisen as a result of the speed of the transition to greener energy, with wind farms being constructed before cabling infrastructure has been upgraded to cope with the increased electricity generation on windy days.
Consequentially, when the network is unable to transmit power from turbines, the energy operator pays for the wind farm to but shut off and then pays for energy to be generated on the other side of the bottleneck, usually from gas-fired power plants.
Just in January and February this year, the cost of this reached £253million, a 60% rise from the same period last year which cost £158million.