Scotland: paid to switch off
When the grid cannot carry wind power south, it pays wind farms to stop generating. Almost all of that money goes to farms in Scotland. Updated daily.
For the case against six claims about Scotland’s renewable electricity, see the briefing paper: Scotland’s energy claims, against the record (2026 edition).
–paid to Scottish wind farms to switch off
of all payments to wind farms to switch off in Great Britain
–in the last 12 months
Month by month
Scottish wind farmsRest of Great Britain
Who pays
The second bill
The farms paid most
| Wind farm | Paid to switch off | Electricity not made (MWh) |
|---|
How this is worked out
- Payments are the bids accepted from each wind unit in the Balancing Mechanism to cut its output, unit by unit and half-hour by half-hour, from Elexon’s public settlement data. The same figures feed the switch-off card on the front page. This record starts on .
- Which farms are Scottish comes from Elexon’s own register of units, not a hand-kept list. Elexon sets a transmission loss factor for each grid zone; North Scotland and South Scotland are two of the zones. Every unit paid in this period is placed; the full data lists them.
- Who pays assumes the bill is shared in proportion to the electricity each nation uses. Switch-off costs are recovered through balancing charges, which suppliers pay for every unit of electricity their customers use. Consumption figures: .
- What it leaves out: small wind farms connected to local networks rather than the national grid, which are not in the Balancing Mechanism; and the cost of the new lines being built to reduce constraints, which is charged separately.