Wind farm near Aberdeen told to switch off 70% of the time because the grid can’t cope

The wind farm nearest Aberdeen had to switch off for more than 70% of the time it could have been generating last year because the grid could not carry its power, new data from the Resolution Foundation shows.

The think tank published the finding on Thursday (3 September) in Second wind, a report by Zachary Leather and Jonathan Marshall funded by the European Climate Foundation. The report examines how the net zero transition is affecting local economies in Aberdeen and Grimsby.

Grid upgrades to fix the bottleneck remain years away, and the Foundation said a second round of work will then be needed before new wind farms in the area can generate efficiently.

It added that decommissioning the North Sea’s ageing oil and gas infrastructure could act as a bridge for Aberdeen’s workers while they wait.

The Government would need to attach conditions to decommissioning work to ensure more of it happens from Aberdeen rather than Norway or Denmark, the Foundation said. It added that the work should be sequenced against wind and transmission timetables so jobs arrive while the local workforce is still intact.

Living standards in Aberdeen have fallen below the UK average for the first time since 2003, and the city’s wage premium has shrunk by three quarters since the early 2010s. Oil and gas production is 76% below its 1999 peak and is set to fall another 40% by 2030.

North Sea production rose by a fifth between 2014 and 2019, while employment in Aberdeen’s oil and gas sector fell by 11% over the same period. The Foundation said this shows that more production no longer means more jobs for the city.

Grimsby has the turbines but not the jobs

Grimsby operates around a third of Britain’s built offshore wind capacity, and the electricity sector has driven most of the area’s output growth since 2018. Operations hubs employ few people once wind farms are built, and the manufacturing and supply-chain jobs that could anchor the town have gone to sites along the east coast instead.

Local colleges have reportedly scaled back training as the opportunities they planned for failed to appear. Hourly wages in Grimsby remain 11% below the national median, and 12% of employees earn at or near the minimum wage.

The Government’s Clean Energy Jobs Plan targets 860,000 good jobs by 2030, which would double employment in low-carbon sectors. The report estimated that around one in ten of those jobs will be permanent roles in industrial hubs, with the rest either dispersed around the country or temporary.

If those permanent roles are spread across the 18 areas promised these industries, they would amount to 2.6% of the areas’ combined jobs. Concentrated in a handful of places, the Foundation said they could anchor high-productivity clusters and raise incomes.

Esbjerg, Denmark’s main offshore wind hub, is a port town similar in size to Grimsby and supports more than 10,000 jobs across the value chain. The report said clustering of this kind raises productivity and lowers the cost of the clean energy transition for everyone.

The Foundation urged the Government to identify the places it wants to win from net zero and back them with long-term investment and consistent policy signals. It also said new infrastructure needed for regional economic development should be funded through general taxation rather than added to energy bills.

“As decisions on Rosebank and Jackdaw steal the headlines, politicians on all sides risk missing the bigger picture when it comes to jobs and the impact of net zero,” said Jonathan Marshall, principal economist at the Resolution Foundation.

“To make the most of the opportunities for growth and regeneration, and to bring the costs of electricity generation down for all, the Government must be more hands on in directing investment and willing to pick regional winners,” said Marshall.

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