Britain, which has aggressively expanded green energy such as wind and solar power to prepare for the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, is suffering a severe "power bottleneck" due to its aging grid.
On the 28th, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) pointed out in an article titled "Britain pushed aggressively to adopt green energy, but the grid can't handle it" that "Britain has built a vast network of wind and solar farms and has a higher share of renewables than major countries, but it has not built enough transmission lines to move this clean energy."
Most of Britain's grid was built in the 1960s and has not undergone a major upgrade since. On top of that, the recent boom in building AI data centers has sent power demand soaring exponentially, overwhelming existing infrastructure.
In particular, the existing transmission network is failing to absorb the surging output from green energy. Wind power now supplies about one-third of Britain's electricity and has become a pillar of the system, but the grid is not delivering it properly to households. Because of this, when new wind farms or battery storage facilities are built, it is known to take five to 10 years to be connected to the grid.
Steve Smith, chief strategy and regulation officer at the British utility National Grid, said, "Even if you build a state-of-the-art wind farm in northern Scotland, if there is no grid connecting to it, no technology can solve the problem," adding, "In the end, you have to build new transmission lines."
According to the WSJ, wind farms clustered along the Scottish coast are far from the cities of southern England, where demand is high, so running them continuously risks overloading the grid. In response, over the year through Mar., the British government paid about $2.3 billion (about 3.3 trillion won) to generators to halt production. These compensation costs are likely to rise further.
Britain is moving to upgrade its aging grid, but that inevitably means higher electricity bills, another burden. National Grid said it plans to invest about $40 billion (about 57.4 trillion won) over the next five years to improve Britain's grid as part of The Great Grid Upgrade project.
The average annual household electricity bill in Britain is now about $1,500 (about 2.16 million won), more than double the 2008 level. It is high even compared with the United States (about $1,700), where electricity use is three times higher. If the massive grid upgrade expense is reflected in rates, the burden on British households will likely grow further.
Britain still has a long way to go before its grid is fully modernized. Building new transmission lines alone can take up to 10 years, much of which is spent on community consultations and regulatory approvals. The WSJ said grid expansion is particularly difficult amid strong opposition from local residents and environmental groups over transmission tower construction.