Britain's wind is in the north — and it's paid to switch off

Scotland makes far more clean power than it can use; when the grid south of it is full, wind farms are paid to stop. This view shows how clean each region is, what the bottleneck costs, and how Britain's fix compares with Germany's and the Nordics'. The British member of the three congested-grid stories.

Regional carbon intensity comes from the NESO Carbon Intensity API; it is consumption-based and covers Great Britain (not Northern Ireland, which is on the all-island market). Region boundaries are the 14 GB DNO licence areas. Pre-computed and static — no live backend.

1 · How clean each region is
grid carbon intensity · gCO₂/kWh

Grid carbon intensity by region. Wind-rich Scotland and the nuclear/hydro north read far cleaner than gas-heavy regions — the same north-clean / south-constrained split that drives the wind-curtailment problem below.

Great Britain, consumption-based. NESO's regional figures are consumption-based (the carbon of the electricity used in a region, imports included) — not the site's production-based carbon view — and cover Great Britain only, excluding Northern Ireland.
Loading region map…
Regions
Regional carbon data unavailable.

Mean grid carbon intensity across the 14 GB DNO regions. Source: NESO Carbon Intensity API (regional, consumption-based); boundaries: NESO GB DNO licence areas.

2 · Scottish wind, paid to stop
curtailed wind (GWh) + cost (£)

When the grid can't carry Scottish wind south (the B6 boundary between Scotland and England), the system operator pays wind farms to turn down — and other plants to turn up — to keep the system stable. The "constraint" bill spikes in windy, low-demand months: the British equivalent of Germany's redispatch, with a transparent price.

A constraint payment is a managed grid-stability cost — wind paid to turn down (and other plants to turn up), not energy discarded by choice — the British equivalent of Germany's redispatch, a real, published cost consumers ultimately pay.

3 · Same problem, three fixes
GB vs Germany vs the Nordics

Germany, the Nordics and Britain all have renewable-rich regions a congested grid can't fully serve. Germany keeps one price and curtails + redispatches; the Nordics split into price zones; Britain keeps one price and pays constraints. Each has trade-offs.

Germany
One national price; the north–south gap shows up as curtailment and redispatch, not in the price.
North–south grid story →
The Nordics
Split into many price zones; the gap shows up as a price difference between regions.
Nordic price zones story →
Britain
One national price; the gap shows up as constraint payments — a managed cost.

Germany, the Nordics and Britain all face renewable-rich regions a congested grid can't fully serve. Germany keeps one price and curtails + redispatches; the Nordics split into price zones; Britain pays constraints. Each has trade-offs; Wattlas shows the mechanism, not a verdict.