Ed Miliband has been accused of having an “obsession” with net zero targets that is leading to higher and higher energy bills for ordinary consumers.
Over the past six months, Britain has repeatedly topped league tables as the nation with the most expensive electricity prices in the world, but the Energy Secretary is showing no sign of losing his zeal for his eco plans.
Mr Miliband is forging ahead with huge plans for more solar plants and electricity generating windmills, despite mounting opposition.
According to the Telegraph, in a bizarre twist wind farms were actually paid almost £400 million to turn off their turbines in 2024 because of a system known as constraint payments.
Constraint payments are made when the overall network cannot safely transmit the electricity produced from generating sources, like a power station or wind farm, because it could lead to an overload in part of the system. In these instances generators are asked to shut down production and they receive payments.
The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) charity found the payouts added £13 to household bills last year, up from £11 in 2023 and £8 in 2022.
Dr John Constable, director of the REF, told the Telegraph: “We are recklessly adding more wind capacity to a system which cannot cope with what it already has. This is resulting in extremely high costs to consumers.”
Dr Constable added that unless the overall energy grid capacity is expanded, the payments made to generators making more production than the system can handle would run into the billions by 2030.
Claire Coutinho, shadow secretary for energy security and net zero, told the newspaper: “As we’ve been saying, if you ramp up renewables before sorting out the grid then consumers will have to pay out billions of pounds in constraint payments.
“Ed Miliband promised to cut bills but his obsession with wind and solar means we are not building the stable baseload – gas and nuclear power that we need for cheap energy. It’s ideology over consumer interest.”
Labour and Mr Miliband are pushing ahead with a Clean Power 2023 Action Plan which includes plans to clasify wind turbines and solar farms as the same importance as airports and power stations.
If the green projects were classed a “nationally significant infrastructure projects” it could mean the government could effectively ignore residents and councils trying to block more wind and solar farms being built.
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: “The National Energy System Operator’s independent report shows we can achieve clean power by 2030 with cheaper electricity, even factoring in constraint payments and a more secure energy system for Britain.
“Through our Clean Power Action Plan, we will work with industry to rewire Britain, upgrade our outdated infrastructure to get renewable electricity on the grid, and minimise constraint payments.”
