New figures reveal that, in the first half of this year, Britain wasted nearly £1 billion paying wind farms, 99 per cent of them in Scotland, to switch off their turbines while paying gas-fired power stations in England to switch on.

This "curtailment" cost arises because so many wind farms have been built in Scotland, far away from where the energy is actually needed. The national grid cannot handle all of the power generated on windy days, so energy companies are paid to stop production to avoid damaging the grid.

At the same time, the lack of power where it could be used, in England, must be supplied by other means, usually gas, adding to UK fossil fuel emissions and heaping costs on consumers.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO) predicts the annual cost of curtailment, already at a record high, could hit a staggering £8 billion by 2030.

Paying wind farm operators not to produce any power is surely absurd, so how did we get here?

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Scotland's goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, five years ahead of the rest of the UK, resulted in a construction bonanza, mainly of onshore wind farms.

It........

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