Rich of Kemi Badenoch to complain about constraint payments to wind farm operators - Yorkshire Post Letters

Kemi Badenoch complains that we pay wind farm operators to turn turbines off when the wind is blowing too strongly.

That's rich. She was a senior minister in the Conservative governments that spent years knowing our electricity grid needed major expansion. Why didn't her government get on with building the infrastructure needed to move cheap renewable electricity to where it’s needed? The problem was so obvious!

Government analysis now acknowledges that delays to the transmission network have created billions in constraint costs. That is a grid failure on the Conservatives' watch, not evidence that wind power has failed.

There's another uncomfortable question. The regional electricity networks are regulated monopolies, and Ecotricity's recent analysis of published accounts puts typical profit margins at around 40 per cent. What did the Conservative government do to ensure consumers got better value from these essential infrastructure businesses?

Badenoch also complains that we pay high prices when gas is needed. But, without increasing clean energy and improving the grid, gas will continue to set the wholesale electricity price a large majority of the time.

Neither will her call for more North Sea gas reduce the cost because it's sold at the international price and domestic production is forecast to fall by around 12 per cent a year.

We need to reform electricity pricing, build the grid, expand storage and clean generation, and reduce our exposure to volatile fossil-fuel prices.

That would cut bills and make Britain more energy secure. Political games won't.