>Amid calls to fix Europe’s outdated energy grid, the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has unveiled plans to supply homes with discounted power on windy days.
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>”Sometimes there is too much wind for our outdated grid to handle, especially in Scotland and the East of England,” the government wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
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>”Rather than paying wind farms to switch off we’re trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper – or even free – electricity.”
GroceryBright on
Why not also invest in modernising the grid and building more wind farms so that everyone can get cheaper energy instead of paying the people who will pocket the profits and get bailouts when the going is tough?
Fresh_Mountain_Snow on
Seems like a great place for industry to set up. Cheap energy.
SuperHansDunYourMum on
Negative spot prices have existed for ages. Nothing new.
Fun_Werewolf_4567 on
Fine, but the longer term strategy has to be buffering storage … batteries, chemical, gravity, heat, etc etc.
iamapizza on
Caveat: “’trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper – or even free – electricity.”
Sounds like it’s just for some locations but not everyone?
Gentle_Snail on
I’m getting a lot of the same comments, so for context the UK is also currently undergoing an explosion in energy storage development:
>The record planning approvals come alongside a surge in planning applications from developers of large-scale batteries to help balance out electricity supplies, and supply power regardless of the weather.
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>More than 100 planning applications for battery energy storage systems were filed in the UK between April and June 2025, covering a combined 8.4GW of capacity. That is more than twice as much as in the same quarter last year.
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>To meet its 95 per cent clean power goal, the government estimates Britain will need about 23-27GW of battery storage by 2030, up from about 6GW now. Over the year to June, applications were submitted for 30GW across 400 scheme
Well that sucks for me, we would have a wind farm just off the coast where I live but the NIMBYS, Conservatives and Greens heavily opposed it until the project was eventually abandoned. This would have been welcomed with the cost of electricity making everyone poorer.
8 Comments
>Amid calls to fix Europe’s outdated energy grid, the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has unveiled plans to supply homes with discounted power on windy days.
>
>”Sometimes there is too much wind for our outdated grid to handle, especially in Scotland and the East of England,” the government wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
>
>”Rather than paying wind farms to switch off we’re trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper – or even free – electricity.”
Why not also invest in modernising the grid and building more wind farms so that everyone can get cheaper energy instead of paying the people who will pocket the profits and get bailouts when the going is tough?
Seems like a great place for industry to set up. Cheap energy.
Negative spot prices have existed for ages. Nothing new.
Fine, but the longer term strategy has to be buffering storage … batteries, chemical, gravity, heat, etc etc.
Caveat: “’trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper – or even free – electricity.”
Sounds like it’s just for some locations but not everyone?
I’m getting a lot of the same comments, so for context the UK is also currently undergoing an explosion in energy storage development:
>The record planning approvals come alongside a surge in planning applications from developers of large-scale batteries to help balance out electricity supplies, and supply power regardless of the weather.
>
>More than 100 planning applications for battery energy storage systems were filed in the UK between April and June 2025, covering a combined 8.4GW of capacity. That is more than twice as much as in the same quarter last year.
>
>To meet its 95 per cent clean power goal, the government estimates Britain will need about 23-27GW of battery storage by 2030, up from about 6GW now. Over the year to June, applications were submitted for 30GW across 400 scheme
[
UK green power surges with record approvals for new renewable energy capacity](https://www.ft.com/content/926a29ae-ffb0-49ec-b548-c98182a307b8)
Well that sucks for me, we would have a wind farm just off the coast where I live but the NIMBYS, Conservatives and Greens heavily opposed it until the project was eventually abandoned. This would have been welcomed with the cost of electricity making everyone poorer.