Germany’s wind power push blamed for SOARING energy bills – and Britain’s ‘obsession’ could mean the same happens here, experts warn

Germany’s green power push has been blamed for its soaring energy bills – as the country’s national grid struggles to cope with the demands of ever-expanding wind farms, experts have warned. 

Germany has been one of the biggest adopters of wind power, installing thousands of wind turbines and creating almost twice as much electricity in under a decade. 

However, a chronic lack of grid capacity is preventing power from getting to those who need it and driving up the cost of electricity for everyone.

And now, leading energy analysts say the same thing could happen in the UK after Ed Miliband is accused of being ‘obsessed’ with renewable power.

Almost three-quarters of Germany’s wind power projects are located out at sea in the North while its most power-intensive industries are clustered in the South – meaning that electricity must travel the entire length of the country.

When this green network produces more power than the outdated grid can handle, operators often have to pay producers to reduce their output.

Worryingly, as Labour plans to quadruple offshore wind power by 2030, experts warn that the UK’s grid could face similar issues.

Jan Rosenow, an energy markets expert at the Regulatory Assistance Project told The Telegraph: ‘The UK’s clean power target is very aggressive, and my worry is that if we don’t get things right, we risk running into the same issues.’

Germany was one of Europe’s earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of wind power but recent years have seen a renewed effort to grow this green industry.

These efforts have become particularly pressing after the outbreak of war in Ukraine highlighted the country’s dependence on Russian energy imports.

Since 2014, Germany has added enough wind turbines to increase its output from 38.6 gigawatts in 2014 to just under 70 gigawatts today. 

As of November this year, Germany had already added another 2.3 gigawatts on top of a further three gigawatts in 2023.

Likewise, in the first nine months of 2024 energy generated by wind and solar overtook energy from fossil fuels for the first time.

While this is a key step towards the Government’s ambition of phasing out coal by 2030, it has left the power grid with some potentially disastrous imbalances.

The overwhelming majority of Germany’s wind power generation comes from offshore projects in the North Sea with a few also located in the Baltic Sea.

However, the majority of power energy-hungry automotive and manufacturing industries are located in the southern regions of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria.

While Germany has added more wind power, the majority of these turbines are located in the North. This leads to crippling bottlenecks in the power grid as pylons can’t transmit enough power. When this happens, grid operators need to pay energy producers to make less electricity. Pictured: Energy pylons in Schoenwalde, Germany 

This means that when a steel plant in the south needs to buy electricity, it must be drawn massive distances along the high-voltage transmission ‘super highways’.

At times when the wind is blowing strongly and the wind farms are nearing their maximum output, the grid simply does not have the capacity to transfer this much power over such a long distance.

That creates crippling bottlenecks on high-voltage transmissions which prevent power from getting where it needs.

According to grid operator TenneT, grid bottlenecks actually led to the North Sea wind turbine fleet producing less power in 2023 compared with the previous year.

Despite adding more capacity, output actually fell by nine per cent year on year since production has to be curtailed when there is not enough transmission capacity in the grid.

This becomes particularly problematic when companies in southern regions have an agreement to buy renewable energy from a wind farm in the north.

In that case, the grid operator has to step in and pay the energy companies to reduce their production while firing up an alternative power source, usually a coal or gas plant, closer to where the energy is needed.

So-called ‘re-dispatch costs’ amounted to €3.5 billion (£2.9 billion) in 2023 according to Amprion, Germany’s largest grid operator.

This graph shows the proportion of energy sources in the UK’s mix for the last week. On December 15, wind power set a new record by providing more than 70 per cent of the country’s energy supply 

That was down from €4.2 billion (£3.5 billion) in 2022 when gas supply troubles led to soaring energy costs, but well above the bill from 2021 and 2022 which were €2.3 billion (£1.7 billion) and €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) respectively.

Likewise, as the growth in wind power outstrips investment in the grid, the amount of energy being wasted has continued to grow.

According to the German Federal Network Agency, grid stabilisation measures led to about 19 terawatt hours of energy being lost in 2023, up from 14 terawatt hours in 2022.

That is equivalent to about four per cent of the country’s entire energy production.

Germany’s wind power woes have now sparked concerns that the UK might face similar issues under Ed Miliband’s plans for a green energy revolution.

Just like Germany, most of the UK’s production is clustered in offshore wind farms in the north of the country.

This year, the UK surpassed 30 gigawatts of wind power capacity as the Viking Wind Farm on the Shetland Islands fully powered on.

However, that significant growth in the abundance of clean energy won’t necessarily lead to lower bills if re-dispatch costs continue to rise due to grid bottlenecks.  

In 2024 alone, the UK has already spent an ‘absurd’ £1bn to temporarily switch off wind farms while the grid struggles to keep up.

But even as Britain plans to add more grid connections between the North and South (pictured), experts warn that a lack of capacity will lead to bottlenecks similar to those in Germany. These costs may be passed on to the customer, leading to higher bills for all 

The amount of energy ‘curtailed’ hit 6.6 terawatt hours in the first 11 months of the year, compared to 3.8 terawatt hours in the whole of 2023.

According to the National Energy System Operator, these costs are on track to hit £6bn by 2030 if nothing is done to improve the grid’s capacity.

Andreas Jahn, an energy expert at the Regulatory Assistance Project, says that this shortfall has been linked to a lack of coordination between the four different national network operators, alongside local opposition to building new pylons.

These issues become worse due to ‘feed in’ from rooftop solar panels which face no penalty for adding to the already conjected power network.

If these issues persist, it could mean that energy providers end up passing on these rising costs to consumers leading to higher bills for all.