Crypto News: The UK’s power problem

Thursday, February 1, 2024

The UK’s power problem

Surface wind in the UK on Jan 18, 2024. Source: Cameron Beccario, earth.nullschool.net

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Britain's outdated electricity network has a growing problem: On blustery days, too much wind power risks overloading the system, and the grid operator must respond by paying some firms not to generate. This "curtailment" costs consumers hundreds of millions of pounds each year.

Adding to that expense, some wind farm operators exaggerate how much energy they say they intend to produce, which boosts the payments they receive for turning off, according to nine people — traders, academics and market experts — most of whom agreed to discuss this controversial behavior only on condition of anonymity.

In effect, they said, the grid has paid some wind farms not to generate power that they wouldn't have produced anyway.

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On today's episode, Bloomberg's Gavin Finch and Todd Gillespie talk about their investigation that was kicked off after they received a tip about troubling inaccuracies in the data used to calculate curtailment payments the UK made to some of Europe's biggest energy firms.

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