AS Micro: Government Failure in Wind Farms

Market failure or government failure? Six wind farms in Scotland have been paid £890,000 for nothing over a few hours on two windy days in April. They were entitled to compensation because they were offering renewable electricity which the UK National Grid did not have the capacity to take in and sell, because of a transmission fault. It seems like a huge waste of money to pay wind farms not to generate energy. Bit teething problems in matching wind farm output and capacity with the ability of the national grid to absorb and utilise their output. Read: Subsidies to wind farms to stop production