The National Grid is set to reveal how much money it pays all energy generators to switch off production, amid calls for transparency from a Scots green energy lobby.
The move comes following a plea from Scottish Renewables for the National Grid to be up front about all constraint payments – compensation paid to generators to reduce output or switch off when the electricity grid is overloaded.
Last December the Press & Journal revealed windfarm operators were sharing out payouts of nearly £125,000 a day for turning off their turbines.
Scottish Renewables chief executive Niall Stuart today hit out at the National Grid for only publishing details of the money paid to windfarms operators.
In a letter to the organisation responsible for managing the nation’s electricity network, Mr Stuart said he was concerned that no information was available for constraint payments to forms of generation other than wind.
He said there was a worry the data on windfarm constraint payments could allow opponents to “cherry pick” total costs of payments of wind, and overlook the higher payments made to other types of generators.
“Wind was responsible for 14% of all constraint payments in the first half of this financial year, with coal, gas and hydro accounting for the vast majority of the other 14%,” Mr Stuart said yesterday.
“Total constraint payments were equal to £161.2million and the cost of constraining wind was £23.2million, meaning that coal, gas and other generators received £137.9million – six times the amount paid to wind.”
The National Grid said it was more than happy to meet Scottish Renewables’ request in full.
“It’s vital that we provide clear information about how we constrain energy generation to balance the power grid,” a National Grid spokesman said today.
“Before the end of February we will publish a full breakdown of constraint costs across all technologies in our monthly balancing services summary. This will include data from January 2014 onwards.”
Stuart welcomed the news, telling Energy Voice: “This is great news.
“At last the public will see the true extent of how much money is paid to constrain all electricity generators off the grid, rather than the focus being solely on wind farms.”
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