Britain has blown past last year's £1.5bn bill for switching off wind farms with three months of the year still to go

The cost of paying Britain’s wind farms to turn off has soared past £1.5 billion so far this year – according to new figures that will infuriate households squeezed by soaring energy bills.

Analysis shows the sum has already gone past the £1.47 billion total for last year, with three months still to go.

On windy days, turbines can produce more power than the local grid can cope with – so operators are paid to turn them off.

In addition, gas-fired power stations closer to urban areas where demand is greatest are paid to turn on, to replace this lost energy.

It comes at a time when household bills have just risen to a three-year high and are expected to rise further in January.

At the same time business energy costs are soaring, with Britain’s manufacturers being crushed by some of the highest prices in the developed world.

On windy days, turbines can produce more power than the local grid can cope with

Critics have said the practice demonstrates the folly of Labour’s obsession with net zero.

But others argue the problem is the failure to beef up the electricity grid or adopt controversial reforms such as local energy pricing – a policy that it is claimed would make bills cheaper where supply is strongest.

The latest figures come from the Wasted Wind website run by supplier Octopus Energy.

It said September was a record-breaking month with £404 million in so-called ‘constraint costs’.

The single most expensive day was last week on 30 September when £30 million was paid out to wind and gas generators in just 24 hours, the analysis showed.

Firing up gas power stations to replace lost wind power represents the majority of the constraint costs. This has become more expensive as the Middle East war sends the price of gas surging.

Temporary grid upgrades have made the problem even worse, Wasted Wind said, with some parts of the grid in Scotland – home of much of Britain’s wind power – currently running at just 40 per cent of capacity.

The problem could get even worse with the government’s own analysis suggesting annual constraint costs could climb to as high as £10 billion by 2030.

Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, said: ‘We've already blown past last year's entire bill, and customers are paying every pound of that waste. It's madness.

‘We’re spending billions to build more grid, while failing to use our existing infrastructure more efficiently. Instead of paying to throw away homegrown cheap power, we should be using it to bring bills down for households and businesses.’

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: 'Britain’s outdated grid is holding the country back.

‘New wind farms, solar projects and businesses are stuck waiting years for connections, keeping us reliant on global fossil fuels and driving up costs for households.’

The spokesperson said government reforms would ‘unlock billions of pounds of public and private investment’ while it was also ‘ending the red tape that slows projects down by allowing developers to build their own connections’.