Who Can Afford Wind Power?
Medieval serfs were tied to the land, forced to provide a portion of their harvest to feudal lords, with no choice and no escape. Their children inherited the same bondage. Today, UK energy consumers find themselves in a remarkably similar position—tied to an electricity grid, forced to provide a portion of their wages to subsidize wind farm operators, with no choice and no escape. Welcome to Energy Serfdom.
The term may sound provocative, but the parallels are precise. UK consumers are coerced into funding a system that guarantees profits for energy companies while they bear all the risk. The Labour government—founded to free workers from exploitation—now enforces a neo-feudal energy regime where workers' wages are extracted to enrich others, and future generations inherit the debt. This is the reality behind the promise of cheaper, cleaner energy.
The Subsidy Tribute: £2.6 Billion and Rising
In 2025, UK households paid a record £2.6 billion in Contract for Difference (CfD) subsidies to renewable generators, with offshore wind taking over £2 billion of this total. Like the medieval tithe, this tribute is mandatory, extracted through electricity bills, with no option to refuse.
Individual wind farms have received staggering sums. Hornsea 1 offshore wind farm alone has collected £2.25 billion in subsidies since its CfD contract began—more than the GDP of some small nations. In 2025, offshore wind generators received approximately 52% of their total revenue from subsidies rather than market sales. They are the new feudal lords, collecting tribute while consumers toil.
These CfD figures represent only one stream of extraction. Serfs also pay through the Renewables Obligation scheme, constraint payments when wind farms are paid to reduce output, grid upgrade costs, and carbon levies on gas generation. The total burden is staggering and growing.
Bondage Without Choice: The Serfdom Structure
Medieval serfdom had defining characteristics. Energy Serfdom mirrors them precisely:
Tied to the domain: Just as serfs could not leave the manor, consumers cannot escape the grid. Every household and business must participate. Geographic monopoly ensures captivity.
Forced tribute: Subsidies are mandatory levies added to bills. Consumers cannot refuse to pay. The CfD system extracts wealth automatically, just as lords claimed a portion of every harvest.
Lords bear no risk: The CfD system guarantees wind farm operators a fixed 'strike price' for 15 years, indexed to inflation. When wholesale prices fall, consumers pay the difference. When prices rise, operators pay back—but this has been rare. Lords profit regardless; serfs absorb all volatility. [Click on Image to Enlarge the CfD Payments Table]
Intergenerational bondage: Serfdom was inherited. So are CfD contracts. Today's 15-year commitments, with index-linked prices, bind your children and grandchildren to subsidies for decisions made today. As one critic noted: 'It's not just what you and I will be paying. This is what our children will be paying as well.'
No right to work the land: Serfs couldn't farm independently. Energy consumers face planning restrictions preventing self-generation—onshore wind bans, solar farm obstacles, prohibitive grid connection charges. The system ensures continued extraction by blocking alternatives.
Labour's Betrayal: From Liberation to Bondage
The Labour Party was founded to free workers from exploitation, to end systems where workers' labour enriched others while they struggled. Trade unions fought for generations against exactly this kind of extraction.
Now Labour enforces Energy Serfdom. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband promised to cut bills by £300 by 2030—one of Labour's flagship election pledges. Instead, average costs have risen by £200 since the election. The promise has been quietly dropped after civil servants objected to its accuracy.
This is not mere policy failure. It represents a fundamental betrayal of Labour's founding principles. The party of workers now extracts workers' wages to guarantee profits for energy companies. The party that fought serfdom now enforces it.
Paying for Nothing: The Constraint Scandal
Beyond direct subsidies, serfs pay constraint payments when wind farms are asked to reduce output because the grid cannot handle their generation. In 2024, British consumers paid over £393 million to discard 8.3 terawatt hours of wind energy—paying for electricity never delivered.
This is pure extraction—tribute paid for nothing. Medieval lords at least provided nominal protection and justice. Modern energy lords collect constraint payments while Scottish wind farms sit idle and gas plants in England run simultaneously. Serfs pay for both.
Some wind farms overstate their potential output during constraints, receiving compensation for electricity they could never have generated. The feudal parallel is complete: lords inflating what is 'owed' while serfs have no recourse.
The Promised Freedom That Never Came
The government now promotes a £150 reduction from April 2026, achieved by ending one green levy while simultaneously increasing CfD subsidies to record levels. This is accounting theatre—serfs are told their tribute is falling while extraction intensifies.
Energy industry executives have warned Parliament that bills will continue rising. The mathematics are irrefutable: bills cannot fall while increasing CfD subsidies, paying billions in constraints, funding grid upgrades, applying carbon levies, and locking in expensive long-term contracts.
UK industrial electricity prices are now four times higher than in the United States, severely damaging competitiveness. Household bills remain among the highest in the developed world. The serfdom system is pricing people out of prosperity while operators profit.
Liberation: Breaking Free from Energy Serfdom
Serfs were eventually freed when the feudal system became economically and morally unsustainable. Energy Serfdom faces the same fate—the question is how much damage occurs before liberation comes.
The path to freedom exists: decentralised energy generation where communities produce their own power and heat locally. This model:
- Ends tribute extraction—no subsidies to distant wind farms
- Provides genuine choice—local ownership and control
- Keeps wealth local—investment and jobs in communities
- Delivers real security—not dependent on distant infrastructure
- Breaks intergenerational bondage—communities control their energy future
Combined Heat and Power systems with district heat networks offer proven technology achieving 80-90% efficiency while the current centralised model achieves only 50-60%. CHP doesn't require massive subsidies because the business case is based on value delivered, not coerced extraction.
Denmark, the Netherlands, and Finland demonstrate this works at scale. Cities like Copenhagen serve 98% of residents through efficient CHP and heat networks—providing affordable energy without Energy Serfdom.
The Verdict: A Neo-Feudal System
Energy Serfdom is not hyperbole—it is precise description of a system where:
- Consumers are tied to a grid they cannot escape
- Forced to pay tribute to energy lords with guaranteed returns
- Bearing all risk while others profit
- Binding their children to the same extraction
- Prevented from generating their own energy independently
The Labour Party—founded to liberate workers—now enforces this bondage. Ed Miliband's broken promise of £300 bill reductions while subsidies hit £2.6 billion reveals the truth: this government serves energy lords, not energy serfs.
The question 'Who can afford wind power?' has been answered: fewer and fewer people. But the more important question is 'How long will people tolerate Energy Serfdom?' History shows that feudal systems eventually collapse under their own injustice and inefficiency.
Liberation will come—either through policy change toward decentralised generation, or through economic collapse when the extraction becomes unsustainable. The only question is how much damage Labour's Energy Serfdom inflicts on working people before freedom is restored.
See an expanded article on our CHP4.org Website - adding in the need to Decentralise our Energy Production as a solution to this madness of Milliband