Britain has already blown past last year's £1.5bn wind farm switch-off bill with three months still to go

From the Newshound archive · first published 6 October 2026.

Households bracing for a third straight energy bill increase are picking up the tab for a record £1.5 billion paid out this year to wind farms to curtail output and to gas plants to fill the gap — with the final quarter still ahead. September alone racked up £404 million in costs, with seven of the most expensive days on record occurring within that month; a single day, 30 September, accounted for £30 million. Octopus Energy founder Greg Jackson described the situation as "madness", arguing that bottlenecks in the grid mean remotely generated wind power goes to waste while costly gas-fired generation is brought online instead.

Those constraint costs flow directly onto consumer bills, which have just climbed to their highest point in three years and appear likely to rise again in January.

Richard Tice noted that on one day in September spending topped £1 million an hour, and argued that soaring costs are falling most heavily on ordinary consumers.

Although billions are being channelled into grid upgrades, wind generation capacity has grown more quickly than the network can accommodate it — meaning the mismatch is deepening rather than easing.