The challenge for the industry, actually for the country as a whole, is what are we going to do about them?

Let’s start with the scale, we are talking about an estimated £2 billion for this year. Now that cost is simply added to the end consumer’s bill, something politicians should be concerned about. But what about the future? Well, our friends at Octopus Energy claim that by 2030 those payments could reach £6 billion, or £200 for the average consumer. However, that’s not the end of the warnings. NESO, the energy system operator in their latest report warned that if the electricity transmission network does not expand as planned, that sum could reach £13 billion – a £400 plus bill to each and every household.

Some will see this as an opportunity to dismiss net zero; scrap the Clean Power 2030 target and row back in the quest to rapidly scale up our renewable energy generation, that way constraint payments can be minimised they argue.

But that’s a minority view, for now. Let’s look at the opportunities this presents. Why waste renewable power? We could look to store that energy in batteries; in thermal storage such as hot water and we should look to generate that much sought after green hydrogen.

As a molecule it can be stored, piped and used right across the gas networks. Providing clean energy to industry, as back-up to power generation and yes, space heating to homes and businesses.

However we use it, something we can all agree on is that constraint payments of this magnitude are unacceptable. If politicians do not realise this, they will soon be ex-politicians.