SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING AN EXTENDED HOLIDAY VACATION: Britain Pushed Ahead With Green Power. Its Grid Can’t Handle It.

Britain’s grid hasn’t undergone a major upgrade since the 1960s, when the rising popularity of refrigerators and washing machines turbocharged demand for electricity. The country is now embarking on an expensive building boom, sparking outrage at unsightly transmission towers and the potential harm to bats, dormice and other local wildlife.

At stake is Britain’s ability to capitalize on the AI boom, and secure the jobs and investment that come with it, as well as to lower household electricity bills.

National Grid is investing the equivalent of about $40 billion to upgrade the U.K.’s power networks over the next five years in a project dubbed “The Great Grid Upgrade.”

Grid upgrades and associated costs add to what are already some of the world’s most expensive electricity bills. The average-size British household paid almost $1,500 for electricity last year, more than double the bill in 2008, government data show. That’s close to the $1,700 that American households pay each year for consuming three times as much electricity.

Outdated infrastructure has created massive distortions in the energy market. Wind farms off the coast of Scotland are far from customers in the populated south, and leaving them constantly on risks frying the grid. The U.K. paid power generators $2.3 billion in the year to March to not produce electricity, a bill that is set to rise in coming years.

The mind reels.