Winded.

Wind farms have truly become like their namesake. In the same way that farmers can be paid to not grow food (old Times link - hope it doesn't vanish behind the paywall any time soon) operators of wind farms are going to be paid to shut down and produce nothing, and not for the usual reason of the wind not blowing. Obviously there's no value in not producing electricity because there's no wind and you can't. That'd just be silly.

No, this is about earning money for not producing electricity when there is wind and you can.

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.
Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK's energy needs in the future. They claim that the 'intermittent' nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.

Actually this isn't news as such. The solution of paying them to switch the generators off might be, but the problem has been known about for years. As I understand it the electricity produced can't be stored because there isn't a battery big enough and even if there was it's AC and there's no such thing as an AC battery. You can't simply produce way more than you need to be on the safe side because important and expensive things will go fzzzt, pop and boom. You can produce not enough but doing so won't make you very popular with the people whose lights keep going off. So the aim is to produce exactly the right amount all the time, matching supply and demand almost perfectly. As I child someone told me that they increase electricity production at half time in football games or when the adverts are on in the middle of soap operas because of all the kettles going on. Well, it seems there's something in it, though obviously there's more to it than that. For one thing there are transmission losses so it's necessary to produce enough over and above the demand to allow for the loss. For another there are ways of storing excess as potential energy, e.g. pumping water to a reservoir above a hydroelectric dam. Again, there are losses but it does mean you can produce a little more than you think you'll need and use it up to pump water or compress air to store and convert back to electricity later. Combining these things with a variety of generators - some whose output can't easily be adjusted, and some which can be turned up or down as need dictates - management of the grid must be a lot like a magician keeping a load of plates spinning on poles. If he watches them closely and pays attention he can see where he needs to increase the speed of a plate and where he can leave well alone for the moment.

And into the mix comes wind energy, a source which varies on how much wind there is where there happen to be wind farms.

The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.
The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the 'balancing mechanism' – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.

I've seen stuff on the web claiming that it's not a problem or at least is not a significant issue, but generally such claims seemed to be coming from Big Eco, particularly the parts of it that make wind turbines or depend to some degree on those that do. Besides, such claims look rather less convincing now.

The system is already used to reduce supply from coal and gas-fired power stations when there is low demand. But shutting down wind farms is likely to cost the National grid – and ultimately consumers – far more. When wind turbines are turned off, owners are being deprived not only of money for the electricity they would have generated but also lucrative 'green' subsidies for that electricity.
The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.
Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour during the test to switch off its turbines.
It raises the prospect of hugely profitable electricity suppliers receiving large sums of money from the National Grid just for switching off wind turbines.
Dr Lee Moroney, planning director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a think tank opposed to the widespread introduction of wind farms, said: "As more and more wind farms come on stream this will become more and more of an issue. Wind power is not controllable and does not provide a solid supply to keep the national grid manageable. Paying multinational companies large sums of money not to supply electricity seems wrong."

You're not kidding, but let's not forget that's only the newest part of the money pit. Because it's not competitive on it's own wind power is generously subsidised, and don't give me that shit about it being just until the technology is mature - windmills have been around for thousands of years and people started generating electricity with them a century ago. It's had a fair go, but still the subsidies in the shape of taxes and/or levies on their electricity bills.

Earlier this year, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that electricity customers are paying more than £1 billion a year to subsidise wind farms and other forms of renewable energy.

Nice work if you can get it, as this 'hippy' turned wind-millionaire can tell you (though you may want to sit down in the dark and do some deep breathing or something before clicking that link).

Still, despite the problem it's, ah, not actually a problem according to the National Grid.

A National Grid spokesman said: "The trial demonstrates that wind can help balance supply and demand just like other generation types: this is potentially useful to us on warm but windy summer days when generation outstrips the low demand – and a higher proportion of generation is made up of wind and inflexible nuclear."
The spokesman added: "The trial is something supporters of wind energy should welcome, as it gives evidence to their case that wind generation does not bring insurmountable problems to balancing supply and demand."

Look, how can you say there isn't a problem, you utter fucknuts? It might not be an insurmountable technical problem, though it's clearly going to become bigger the more of the things you build and the bigger you build them, but there's a financial problem if your business earns gets money for doing sweet fuck all. The long and the short of it is that just as wind sometimes fails to produce power when demand if high it can produce too much when demand is low, and if the only solution is to pay you lot to turn the fuckers off then presumably we're already past the point at which pumping water and compressing air to store potential energy is an option.

But normally when a business overproduces they have to deal with it themselves, so please permit a layman's question: why the fuck are you just sitting back and watching the money roll in when you could be creating more storage for the surplus your fucking bird mincers are producing? Christ, at the very least you could turn things backwards and use electricity to turn the blades in still air and make it look like they're doing something vaguely worthwhile. Or just put some nice lights on it maybe.

PS - Bill Sticker and I seem to have been looking at the same pages of The Tele, though I didn't look at the comments and didn't see the link to a doco about wind generation and money generation called Con With The Wind. Nice title, which I wish I'd thought of first. I'll be watching that when it comes out.