UK Wind Farm to Pay £33 Million for Breaching Market Rules

(Bloomberg) -- A wind farm in Scotland will pay £33.14 million ($42.3 million) to UK energy regulator Ofgem for breaching energy market rules.

Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd., broke rules when it charged excessive prices to reduce its output to ease pressure on the grid, “pushing up costs for consumers,” Ofgem said in a statement. 

The action follows a Bloomberg investigation earlier this year which showed that dozens of British wind farms were overstating their power production, which in turn added millions to consumers’ electricity bills. Beatrice Offshore Windfarm overstated generation forecasts by between 6% and 10% from September 2021 through July 2022, the report found. 

The wind farm is a joint venture with SSE Plc owning a 40% stake.

On particularly windy days, turbines in the UK often have to be turned off as they risk overloading the country’s aging electricity network. National Grid Plc’s system operator will pay companies to do this based on the wind farms’ own predictions of how much they would have generated. Overstating forecasts can boost what the companies receive, with consumers ultimately picking up the tab. 

“BOWL now accepts Ofgem’s position that its approach was not compliant,” Ofgem wrote in their statement. The money will be paid into the regulator’s redress fund, which helps support energy consumers in vulnerable situations, according to the statement. 

BOWL said it accepted that it breached one of its electricity generation license conditions, according to a statement from its spokesperson, adding that “the breach was in BOWL’s view wholly unintentional.”

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