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It's good to raise awareness of this. I think that grid upgrades are the only good solution here (and those are already happening), because shifting enough con

It's good to raise awareness of this. I think that grid upgrades are the only good solution here (and those are already happening), because shifting enough consumption towards where the windfarms are strikes me as ridiculous (what fraction of London is going to migrate to Glasgow once electricity is 40% cheaper there, honestly?) and just luring a handful of new datacenters to Scotland (with cheaper electricity) is not gonna cut it. Demand-side anything (or even storage) is not gonna solve this either, because the british north/south grid connections are already close to the limit most of the time; this is not just a peak-power problem. There are very similar problems in Germany (insufficient north/south grid connectivity), and expected long-term costs (within 2037/2045) are in the €200b range (roughly half is for off-shore connections): https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023-06/EN_GDP_2037_2045_V2023_2E_1.pdf https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023... (take with a grain of salt because this is material from the grid operators, not some neutral source).

lars512 1y ago
Isn’t that just assuming that people, rather than industry, is the main consumer? Perhaps there are energy hungry industrial applications that could move.
- stepbeek 1y ago
  Absolutely. I had imagined green hydrogen production or something similarly intensive to be the solution.
- grues-dinner 1y ago
  UK domestic electricity is roughly equal to industrial (94 vs 82 TWh). Commercial is 62. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688a28656478525675739051/DUKES_2025_Chapter_5.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688a286564785... A lot of curtailment happens at night: strong offshore wind and low demand. So not only do you need to provide enough of a price delta for the industry move to be worth it (sacrificing proximity to other amenities and customers, eating the relocation costs, loss of employee supply, etc) but you also need the industry to be operating 24/7 (or start doing it). Some industries can do that, but not all. And then one day when the grid upgrades are done, the risk is the incentives are cut and now you're stuck at the wrong end of the country.

lars512 1y ago

Isn’t that just assuming that people, rather than industry, is the main consumer? Perhaps there are energy hungry industrial applications that could move.

stepbeek 1y ago
Absolutely. I had imagined green hydrogen production or something similarly intensive to be the solution.
grues-dinner 1y ago
UK domestic electricity is roughly equal to industrial (94 vs 82 TWh). Commercial is 62. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688a28656478525675739051/DUKES_2025_Chapter_5.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688a286564785... A lot of curtailment happens at night: strong offshore wind and low demand. So not only do you need to provide enough of a price delta for the industry move to be worth it (sacrificing proximity to other amenities and customers, eating the relocation costs, loss of employee supply, etc) but you also need the industry to be operating 24/7 (or start doing it). Some industries can do that, but not all. And then one day when the grid upgrades are done, the risk is the incentives are cut and now you're stuck at the wrong end of the country.