Scotland’s biggest offshore wind farm wasted three quarters of the energy it produced last year after being paid hundreds of millions of pounds to switch off its turbines. The Telegraph has the story.

The Seagreen wind farm off Scotland’s east coast is squandering vast amounts of its power because there is not enough grid capacity to transport it to areas of the country where it is needed most.

This inability to handle surplus electricity led to 77% of Seagreen’s total output going to waste last year, new accounts show, from a total of 114 turbines.

This is likely to have sparked hundreds of millions of pounds in so-called constraint payments for the wind farm, which is run by Scottish energy giant SSE and France’s TotalEnergies.

These payments are made under a Government scheme to encourage renewables, aimed at guaranteeing cash for green power even if it cannot be used.

SSE, which is the lead partner in the Seagreen wind farm, refused to disclose how much it was paid for switching off the turbines.

However, estimates from the Renewable Energy Foundation suggest it could amount to more than £200 million for the year.

Constraint payments relating to wasted wind are added to consumer and business energy bills in the form of network charges.

Overall, they totalled around £1.7 billion last year and are set to reach £8 billion by 2030.

Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary, blamed Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, for overseeing a system that is becoming unaffordable.

“What other sector do we pay people not to produce anything? We’re spending £1 billion switching wind farms off today, but thanks to Ed Miliband’s mad dash for renewables, we’ll be spending £8 billion by 2030,” she said.

“We simply cannot afford an approach that makes our energy system higher cost and less productive. Cheap, reliable energy must come first.”

Read More: Scotland’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm Wasting Three Quarters of Energy