Excess wind power costs British taxpayers £1billion this year so far

An excess of wind power has cost Britain £1billion already this year, figures show.

The country hit the milestone this weekend – two months earlier than last year, according to statistics from Octopus Energy.

The problem arises when windfarms, many of which are in remote locations, produce more energy than the grid can dispatch to where it is needed.

Constraint payments are made to generators to reduce their output, while any shortfall is usually made-up from gas-fired power stations closer to demand – further increasing costs.

One day alone – July 2 – saw £21million in constraint payments being made, according to website Wasted Wind, an Octopus affiliate.

Latest figures show that the country has this year spent £1.02billion switching off wind turbines and paying gas plants to step in.

This is already £300million more than last year, with the costs ending up on consumer bills. The total for 2025 was £1.45billion.

Neso, which operates the grid, has forecast that, in the next 12 months, constraint costs will amount to £3.2billion.

By the end of the decade, Octopus warned they could hit £10billion a year.

The original grid was built to handle energy from traditional power stations, which were frequently situated near the coalfields that fuelled them.

But, with renewables, the source of power is often more remote, meaning greater connectivity is required to move it to where it is required.

Octopus Energy founder and chief executive, Greg Jackson, has long called for energy reform, including ‘zonal pricing’.

The price of electricity is set on a national wholesale market. With zonal pricing, electricity costs vary depending on region.

Mr Jackson says this system would give businesses and residents local to generators cheaper energy, rather than simply wasting the power.

He likened the “wasted wind” issue to growing vegetables at home, throwing them away and buying imported supplies instead.

Last year, the Government rejected calls for zonal pricing, opting instead for “reformed national pricing”.

Mr Jackson said: “The way Britain’s electricity system is run is bonkers – you wouldn’t grow tomatoes in your garden, only to bin them and buy expensive, imported ones from the shop.

“So why are we doing the same thing with electricity? We should use this wind to give people cheap power locally, instead of paying billions to throw it away.

“That’d be a welcome relief for families and businesses – it’s low hanging fruit that should absolutely appeal to a government which is focused on cost of living and devolution.”

Suggestions from other quarters have included using surplus wind energy on green projects that require large amounts of electricity, such as producing hydrogen through electrolysis.

But, discussing the issue last month, Montel analyst Fintan Devenney said: “The underlying system problem is a grid that was not built to handle the volume of wind projects being built in Scotland.”

A reinforced grid is eventually expected to bring constraint payments down and the Government says that plans are in place to reform the planning system, in order to speed up new infrastructure.

It added that payments had increased, in part, because of spikes to the cost of gas, caused by the Iran conflict.

Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said: "Energy experts have said we paid £1.5billion because of wasted wind last year, but this will rise to £10 billion by 2030.

"Labour's plans are adding more and more costs onto people's energy bills at the time we should be doing all we can to make electricity cheap.

"Labour should build more firm, reliable power that we control and back our Cheap Power Plan to cut energy bills by £200."

A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We are reversing decades of underinvestment to upgrade and build out the grid.

“We’ve cut VAT on electricity to give families breathing space and the Energy Secretary will work to bring bills down for good.”