The country experiences a disastrous energy crisis, with 10 percent of the 400 million worth of wind power in Britain going to waste in 2024 because of insufficient grid infrastructure, which has cost the government a fortune trying to find revolutionary ways of getting battery storage. Just one year later, wind curtailment costs have increased more than 5.5 percent to above 10 percent, and Scottish wind farms are generating significantly more energy than transmission lines can carry to English demand centers in the south.
Revolutionary storage technology slashes curtailment costs by staggering 80%
According to Solar Power Portal, energy storage developer Field has indicated that the cost of wind curtailment can be reduced by as much as 80 percent each year as long as adequate battery energy storage is built. The firm estimates that the process of turning on gas power stations in England and Wales and turning off wind farms in Scotland costs billpayers in total 920 million in 2023 alone.
Nevertheless, as Field analyses have shown, the price of the curtailment to billpayers can be reduced by about 80 percent in case the current technologies, such as battery storage, are better utilized in the existing grid. According to Field, a pinch point between the Scottish and English borders, the B6 boundary, incurred most curtailment costs over the year.
How grid bottlenecks waste billions of pounds of energy
In his analysis, Field found this pinch point alone capable of generating up to £2.2 billion of curtailment costs by 2030 as the curtailment problem in the UK grows. As of 2023, nearly three-quarters of the cost of curtailment in the UK was on paying gas-fired power plants in England and Wales to supply power, as they were needed due to capacity constraints that prevented the cheaper supply of Scottish wind power to the south.
Explosive wind capacity growth overwhelms outdated infrastructure
In 2024, the UK curtailed a full 10% of its wind power because of insufficient grid infrastructure and energy storage, costing consumers almost £400 million, Tamarindo Global estimates. Drax estimated this was sufficient energy to supply over two million households, and this is the sheer magnitude of wasted renewable resources.
Of keen interest is the fact that the rate of wind curtailment has risen about two times within a single year, and this is mainly because the wind farms in Scotland are generating higher energy than the grid can transport southwards to the demand centers in England. The renewable electricity capacity in Scotland increased more than twice in the period 2013-2023, with a 10 to 15.3GW wind capacity improvement in just one year between 2022 and 2023 alone.
Hornsea 3 establishes a blueprint for future wind-storage integration
The Boudica project of Ørsted will entail the installation of a 300MW/600MWh battery energy storage system on the same location as the Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm Onshore Substation of Ørsted, located in the UK. Bridgit Hartland-Johnson, Ørsted’s chief specialist, has called the project a blueprint for the future and how wind projects can effectively incorporate storage solutions.
The strategic deployment of storage can offer massive savings
It has been demonstrated that implementing medium-duration energy storage can substantially lower the cost of achieving net zero, and one study estimated that energy storage would save the UK between £500 million and 3.5 billion per year. The report determined that the addition of energy storage would result in a 11 TWh/year wind capacity increase in the UK without any curtailment costs.
The UK’s £400 million wind curtailment crisis demands immediate action through massive battery storage deployment and grid infrastructure upgrades. As the curtailment rates have increased twice in a year and the savings that could be achieved through strategic storage implementation of 3.5 billion pounds annually, Britain is at a crossroads where revolutionary battery technology could turn wasted wind power into clean energy that can be trusted to keep the nation on track.