Climate Politics
UK Energy Minister Condemns Wind Farms for Overstating Their Output
- Comments follow Bloomberg report on how practice adds to costs
- Energy regulator announces investigation of operators’ conduct
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A UK energy minister on Thursday condemned the behavior of wind-farm operators who have routinely overestimated how much power they’ll generate — a practice that adds to consumers’ bills, according to electricity traders and market experts.
Andrew Bowie was responding to a Bloomberg News report that found dozens of the country’s wind farms, many run by some of Europe’s largest energy companies, have overstated their power generation in forecasts. An analysis of 30 million market records indicates that such overestimation has cost bill payers tens of millions of pounds in additional costs since 2018.