Why Renewables Take Your Money – and Then Take More

By Shane Oxer — Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy

For years we’ve been sold the idea that wind turbines and solar farms would bring Britain cheap, clean, abundant electricity. We were told renewables would “pay for themselves,” cut bills, and free us from global energy markets.But today, as the National Grid’s own data shows day after day, the truth is very different. Renewables aren’t just taking billions in subsidies ,they’re locking Britain into a system where we pay more for electricity, rely more on gas, and depend more on imports from Europe just to keep the lights on.This isn’t an accident. It’s the direct result of a government obsessed with building intermittent generation without building the reliable generation to back it up.And so renewables take your money… and then take more.

1. They take your money upfront.

Through subsidies, levies, and standing charges.Every turbine and solar field begins life funded by YOU.Not by investors.Not by developers.Not by energy companies.By your energy bill.Contracts for Difference (CfDs), Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs), Feed-in Tariffs,all different names for the same thing: a constant stream of money taken from households and funnelled into companies building intermittent generation.These aren’t small sums. We’re talking billions every year, baked into your bill, whether you can afford it or not.And that’s just the start.

2. Then they take more.

Because intermittent generation needs a permanent gas backup

A modern economy cannot run on guesswork.But that’s exactly what wind and solar force onto the National Grid.When the wind drops, as it does frequently, gas has to jump in instantly.When the sun goes down, every single day, gas takes over again.So for every gigawatt of wind or solar capacity added, we must keep a gigawatt of gas, ready and waiting, spinning in the background or firing up at a moment’s notice.That means paying for:the renewables,the gas stations kept on standby and the fuel for when they’re needed (which is often).You pay once for the wind turbines, and again for the gas needed to back them up.Renewables double your bill, they don’t reduce it.

3. Then they take even more, because the grid can’t handle them.The more renewables we add, the more fragile the grid becomes.Why?Because the grid was designed around stable, controllable, predictable generation.Coal, gas, nuclear, power stations that produce at will.Wind and solar dump electricity onto the system when they want, not when you need it. So the government is now forcing through the most expensive grid rebuild in British history:new substationsnew pylonsnew super-grid transformerstens of billions in reinforcementsbattery farms the size of small villages And YOU pay for it all through higher bills, higher standing charges, and higher taxes.Intermittency is the most expensive electricity ever invented.

4. Then they take more again. Because when renewables over-generate, we PAY THEM to switch off.This is the scandal almost nobody knows about.When wind produces more than the grid can handle, the grid has to curtail it (switch it off).But instead of losing money like any normal business, wind operators get paid compensation , often at inflated “constraint payments.”In other words:Renewables get paid when they produce AND Renewables get paid when they don’t produce.Nobody else in the economy gets that deal.But renewable developers do.Because you pay for it, they can’t lose.

5. And then even more . Because we must import power to stop the system collapsing. My screenshots show it clearly: even with massive renewable build-out, Britain still sucks in electricity from France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands on a daily basis.When the wind drops, our grid becomes a beggar.And imports aren’t cheap, especially when half of Europe is short of power.Again, YOU pay.

6. And after all that money? We STILL need reliable generation. Here is the final absurdity:The government is building a system where intermittent energy dominate,but still expects gas, nuclear, biomass and interconnectors to save us when the wind doesn’t blow.We are paying twice, sometimes three or four times, for the same megawatt of electricity:once for wind/solar subsidies.Again for standby gas.Again for grid reinforcements.Again for constraint payments. Again for imports and finally through higher standing charges

No wonder British households pay some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world.This was not the promise.This was not the deal.This is not a fair system.

Britain needs reliable, dispatchable power,first, not last.We can’t build a renewable grid and then scramble to find reliability at the end.We must build reliability first:nuclear,gas,domestic production,long-life infrastructure,technologies that actually deliver power when we need it.

Only then can we decide how much intermittent energy the system can safely handle.Right now, the government is doing it backwards and the public is paying the price.Renewables take your money.Then they take more.And more.And more.It’s time for a reset.