High Power Prices Mean Wind Farms Are Paying the U.K. Government
- Offshore wind farms are set to fund a payment to suppliers
- High wholesale power prices have caused subsidies to vanish
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For the first time ever, the U.K.’s giant fleet of wind farms is earning the government money.
Under the British system, power producers only get a subsidy if the wholesale price is below a certain threshold. But with record-high natural gas prices driving up costs this winter, power from once-expensive offshore wind farms is so much cheaper than conventional plants that they are paying millions of pounds back to the Low Carbon Contracts Company, the government entity in charge of the support mechanism.