Solar Installations Being Paid To Switch Off

Build endless solar panels and then pay them to switch off, madness!

Just when you thought this entire push for endless solar panels couldn’t get anymore insane we have yet another story break that makes the entire agenda even more crazy. Yes, that’s right folks, solar installations are now being paid to switch off. Over £100,000 to switch off between February and June of 2025.

Why are doing this to ourselves? There is abundant hydrocarbons around the world for us to still use not including our own reserves. Then there is promising developments in SMR technology. We do not need to be destroying prime farmland and now even waterways just to then have them then be sitting there doing nothing! All of this is already happening before we get anywhere with the sun dimming experiments.

Solar Following Wind In Draining Taxpayer Money For Doing Nothing

Wind farms, especially in remote areas like northern Scotland or offshore, often generate more power than the grid can handle on windy days, leading to “constraint payments” to shut them off. Now, solar farms—historically smaller and better connected in the South—are also getting paid to reduce output, as their rapid expansion outpaces grid capacity. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) justifies this as essential for grid stability, but the costs are staggering: £650 million this year alone, per the Wasted Wind website, with total “balancing payments” potentially hitting £8 billion annually by 2030 without massive grid upgrades. These costs, predictably, get slapped onto consumers’ energy bills.

The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) flagged that five solar farms pocketed £102,500 to cut 3.6 gigawatt hours between February and June. REF’s director, John Constable, nails the issue: these payments, alongside £200 billion in renewable subsidies since 2002 (roughly £8,000 per household), are ballooning energy costs. He argues that renewables should be self-sustaining by now, not leaning on subsidies or constraint payments, which drive the UK’s sky-high energy prices. This resonates with our view that the rush to renewables ignores practical energy needs and the benefits of reliable, CO2-emitting sources like natural gas, which don’t require such wasteful interventions and have been wrongfully demonised.

NESO and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero defend the payments, claiming they’re working on grid upgrades to minimise constraints. But upgrades are costly, and guess who’ll foot that bill? Consumers, again. Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho calls out the hypocrisy of promising £300 bill cuts while paying renewables to idle, projecting a tripling of wind farm constraint costs by 2030. This underscores the flawed logic of prioritising climate targets over affordable energy, a point we’d argue is rooted in an overblown fear of CO2—a molecule essential for plant growth and food security.

Octopus’s push for zonal pricing, where energy prices reflect regional supply and demand, could reduce constraint payments by incentivising better-placed infrastructure. It’s a market-driven idea worth exploring, but it doesn’t address the core issue: the net zero agenda’s reliance on intermittent renewables. From our perspective, this article exposes a system where ideology trumps economics, jacking up costs while sidelining CO2’s role in a balanced, affordable energy mix. It’s a case study in why we need to rethink energy policy with pragmatism, not dogma.

Solar Panels On Top Of School Building Catch Fire

As if there weren’t already enough reasons for solar to be opposed yet another arrives, this time in a primary school building catching fire due to solar panels!

The fire at Shanklea Primary School in Cramlington, sparked by solar panels on July 5, 2025, exposes yet another flaw in the rush to renewables. Five fire engines battled the blaze, which left the school’s flat roof charred and forced a Monday closure for damage assessment. Drone footage revealed the extent of the destruction where solar panels once sat, with Northumberland County Council now scrambling for structural reports and “remedial works.” The incident underscores the risks of over-relying on green tech like solar, which, while touted as eco-friendly, can pose serious safety hazards. Solar panel fires, though rare, often involve volatile materials, and this case raises questions about maintenance and oversight in the push for net zero.

If only there was some cheap reliable abundant source of energy we could tap into that doesn’t need to be paid to switch off and doesn’t put the education of primary school children at risk!?