The Government has secured record amounts of offshore wind power in an auction that officials insisted is good for consumers and investment in the UK.<\/p>\n
The latest round of contracts under flagship renewable energy auctions is delivering 8.4 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind \u2013 the amount experts have said was needed this year to keep the Government on track to meet its \u201cclean power\u201d by 2030 pledge.<\/p>\n
They comprise six new wind farm projects around the country, which will be paid \u00a391 per megawatt hour on average for the power they generate, including Berwick Bank, in the North Sea \u2013 the first new Scottish scheme since 2022, and the largest planned offshore wind project in the world.<\/p>\n
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband (PA) <\/p>\n
Two others are at Dogger Bank South, off the coast of Yorkshire, and Norfolk Vanguard, off the East Anglian coast \u2013 two of the largest offshore wind farms in the world.<\/p>\n
Awel Y Mor in the Irish Sea is the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The auction round has also backed two much more expensive schemes to develop floating offshore wind technologies, which see turbines mounted on floating platforms rather than fixed foundations.<\/p>\n
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the new projects would generate enough electricity to power 12 million homes, deliver around \u00a322 billion in private investment, support 7,000 jobs and help the UK tackle the climate crisis.<\/p>\n
The price for offshore wind was agreed at 40% lower than the cost of building and operating a new gas power plant, according to a key industry metric.<\/p>\n
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: \u201cWith these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a historic win for those who want Britain to stand on our own two feet, controlling our own energy rather than depending on markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Miliband said hitting 8.4GW marked a \u201cmonumental step\u201d towards Labour\u2019s 2030 goal to remove almost all fossil fuels from the UK\u2019s electricity supply<\/p>\n
Under the auctions, developers bid to secure a guaranteed rate \u2013 or a strike price \u2013 they can charge for each megawatt hour (MWh) of power they generate.<\/p>\n
If the market price of electricity falls below that, companies receive top-up payments, but if the price is higher, companies have to pay back the difference, with consumers paying the top-up and receiving the benefits back on bills.<\/p>\n
The cost of offshore wind, seen as a key part of delivering the 2030 target, has risen in the last few years \u2013 after years of falling prices and booming development.<\/p>\n
With this latest auction, the Government has secured a strike price of \u00a391 per MWh on average or just over \u00a365 in the commonly used benchmark of 2012 prices.<\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
That is significantly higher than the record low price of \u00a337.35 \u2013 in 2012 prices \u2013 secured in the 2022 auction, although projects later faltered because of rising costs and no contracts were secured the following year as offered prices were too low to attract bids.<\/p>\n
The Government pointed to analysis it published on Wednesday, using the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) industry metric, putting the cost of building and operating a new gas-fired power station at \u00a3147 per megawatt hour.<\/p>\n
Head of the Energy Department\u2019s \u201cmission control\u201d to deliver the clean power pledge, Chris Stark said the UK was seeing power demand grow, after decades of it falling, as the economy grows and increasingly switches to technology such as electric vehicles.<\/p>\n
More power generation was needed, and the latest strike price was a \u201cstellar result\u201d when compared to the price of new gas plants, he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Stark said Government was confident that once the latest auction results for cheaper technologies \u2013 including onshore wind and solar \u2013 were announced in a few weeks, analysis would show it would lead to lower bills in the future.<\/p>\n
And he said: \u201cIt gives us basically an insurance against the next price spike in the cost of fossil fuel, whenever that comes, as inevitably it will.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an immense insurance that we bought today: every megawatt of offshore wind that we\u2019re bringing on is a few more metric tons of LNG that we don\u2019t need to import in that moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also criticised Reform UK for threatening to rip up clean power contracts if it won power as \u201cpretty reckless\u201d by adding in extra risk, though added it did not appear to have manifested in higher prices in bids from industry.<\/p>\n
Dhara Vyas, Energy UK\u2019s chief executive, said: \u201cToday\u2019s auction results will deliver critical national infrastructure that will strengthen our energy security and deliver lower bills, as well as provide jobs, investment, and economic growth right across Great Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Douglas Parr, policy director for Greenpeace UK, described it as a \u201cwin for climate and billpayers\u201d, though he urged the Government to do more with investment in ports and critical infrastructure, and reducing the cost of borrowing with loan guarantees.<\/p>\n
But Anne McCall, director of RSPB Scotland, warned the proposed Berwick Bank offshore wind farm is a \u201ccrushing blow for marine wildlife\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 62% of seabird species are in decline across the UK, it is an absolute disgrace that public money will be used to support what is predicted to be one of the world\u2019s most damaging windfarms for birds,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Andy Prendergast, GMB national secretary, said the \u201creal litmus test\u201d will be whether the auction delivers the jobs promised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a golden opportunity to on-shore supply chains and create genuine employment opportunities across the UK. It\u2019s imperative that we take it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said: \u201cThese are the highest prices for offshore wind in a decade and higher than the current cost of electricity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think your bills are too high, this won\u2019t make them any lower,\u201d she warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cBills are now almost \u00a3200 higher than when Labour came to power and Ed Miliband is cementing our uncompetitive electricity prices for even longer at a time when the world is becoming more unstable and we need cheap, reliable energy to compete,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government has secured record amounts of offshore wind power in an auction that officials insisted is good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[209774,748,41272,17790,393,1234,4884,209775,1144,5348,712,22580,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-695246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-berwick-bank","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-clean-power","13":"tag-ed-miliband","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-government","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-megawatt-hour","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-offshore-wind","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-the-government","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115893177156045442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}