Wasted wind power costs Britain £1bn

Miliband’s plan to build thousands of new turbines under scrutiny as curtailment bill soars

Britain has spent more than £1bn on wasted wind power this year, raising questions over Ed Miliband’s plan to build thousands of new turbines across the UK.

The spiralling cost of switching off wind farms has come to light in new figures from tracker website Wasted Wind. It shows that the UK had spent £734m by this point in 2024.

This year’s bill has already topped £1bn because of growing strain on the electricity grid, which forces wind farms in remote areas to switch off when the network is too congested to transport their power elsewhere. This is known in the industry as curtailment.

At the same time, the imbalance requires energy officials to spend vast sums on replacement power, often from gas-fired plants.

The latest figures highlight the problems posed by Mr Miliband’s net zero push, as the Energy Secretary has vowed to accelerate the roll-out of renewables to help deliver green electricity across the UK by 2030.

So-called curtailment costs are ultimately passed on to customers via increases in their bills.

Regulator Ofgem recently warned that curtailment added around £15 to household bills as part of its latest price cap, which came into force on Wednesday.

A typical household will now pay up to £1,755 on gas and electricity a year, up from £1,720.

The increase has piled further pressure on Mr Miliband, who has vowed to cut household energy bills by £300 by the end of the decade.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, has branded the pledge a fantasy. She said: “By 2030, we will be paying £8bn to wind farms, not to generate any energy but simply to turn off when it’s too windy.

“The British people want us to prioritise cheap energy over wind developers’ profit and that’s what the Conservatives will do.”

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, has branded Mr Miliband’s net zero plan a disaster and called on Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, to sack him.

Price pain

Her comments were made just hours after separate figures showed that Britain’s industry is paying the highest electricity prices in the developed world.

The UK is also the second-most expensive country for household electricity, with bills more than double those in the US.

Mr Miliband has repeatedly denied that net zero is to blame for higher bills and branded critics such as Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, as “ideological extremists”.

Reform has vowed to scrap net zero if it wins the next election, while suggesting that it would look to restart fracking.

Speaking at the Labour Party conference, Mr Miliband said: “Fracking will not take a penny off bills, it will not create long-term sustainable jobs, it will trash our climate commitments, and it is dangerous and deeply harmful to our natural environment.

“The good news is communities have fought back and won that fight before and can do so again.”

He added: “We sent those frackers packing, I say let’s ban fracking and let’s vow to send this bunch of frackers packing too.”

Mr Miliband also insisted that clean energy offered the best chance to reduce Britain’s reliance on volatile gas prices.

Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform, said: “Labour has spent over £1bn paying to turn off wind turbines while relying on gas plants instead.

“This proves we remain heavily dependent on gas and that the Government’s fixation on green energy is costing taxpayers billions, driving up energy prices and pushing the country deeper into financial crisis.

“It’s time Ed Miliband dropped this reckless net zero agenda and backed a serious energy strategy: North Sea drilling, modular nuclear reactors and shale gas.

“To be a rich nation you need cheap energy. Net zero gives us the opposite.”