Energy / Viking constrained as wind industry sets new production record
BRITAIN recorded a new wind output record earlier this month while Viking, as well as a number of other large wind farms, collected constraint payments for standing idle.
On Friday 5 December between 5.30pm and 6pm, a new record of 23,825 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity fed energy into the national grid, according to Robin Hawkes, Octopus Energy’s data visualisation engineer.
The previous record stood at 22,711 MW.
In a post on LinkedIn, Hawkes said the output could have been 3,000MW higher if the transmission network was capable of carrying the additional energy.
Instead, Viking, Moray East, Moray West and Seagreen, which are among the country’s biggest and newest wind farms, were all constrained off even though there was plenty of wind.
Hawkes, who two years ago developed a now very popular live generation map for major wind farms in Britain, said his data came directly from the National Energy System Operator (NESO).
“What the wind records don’t show is the amount of wind output that was lost due to transmission constraints, when the grid asks wind farms (usually in Scotland) to reduce output even though the energy is still needed elsewhere,” he said. “The wind was there, the wind farms were there and had spare capacity, but we weren’t able to utilise them.”
Constraint payments has been a hugely contentious topic locally ever since the 443MW Viking wind farm was switched on in summer 2024.
Data published by the Renewable Energy Foundations suggests that Viking owner SSE Renewables has so far this year received almost £9 million for turning the wind farm off.
Meanwhile, NESO has confirmed a new process that will prioritise energy generation and storage projects based on what is need rather than what is available.
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