UK Renewable Auction Nets 131 New Projects, Including Offshore Wind

The sixth renewables auction of the United Kingdom (UK) government delivered 131 new green infrastructure projects offering 9.6 gigawatts (GW) of energy.

The projects have the potential to provide enough electricity to power 11 million homes, according to a news release from the country's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. This makes it the “biggest round ever with significant numbers for onshore wind, solar and tidal energy,” the agency said.

The results are a marked improvement on the previous auction round in 2023, which saw 92 projects delivered but no offshore wind projects.

The new projects include the largest offshore windfarm project in Europe, the Hornsea 3 project off the Yorkshire coast, as well as the largest floating offshore wind project in the world to reach market, Green Volt, which is double the size of Europe’s total installed floating offshore wind capacity.

The projects also include six new tidal projects, building on the UK’s world leading position, as well as a combined 115 solar and onshore wind projects.

“We inherited a broken energy policy, including last year’s disastrous auction round which gave us no successful offshore wind projects,” Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said. “Today we have now achieved a record-setting round for enough renewable power for 11 million homes, essential to give energy security to families across the country. It is another significant step forward in our mission for clean power by 2030 – bringing Britain energy independence and lower bills for good”.

In July, Miliband announced that the budget for this year’s renewable energy auction was being increased by GBP 500 million to over GBP 1.5 billion in a bid to build new green infrastructure as part of the mission to deliver clean power by 2030. GBP 1.1 billion was allocated for offshore wind.

Energy Minister Michael Shanks said, “Securing new wind turbines, solar panels and cutting-edge technologies such as tidal will boost growth, catalyze investment and support good jobs across Great Britain.”

“We’ve done this while ensuring value for money for billpayers, delivering the biggest auction round to date at competitive prices, helping turbocharge our mission for energy independence and clean power by 2030,” Shanks added.

Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), a nonprofit organization representing the UK offshore energy industry, welcomed the announcement. The group noted that the auction results will bring an extra 3.3 GW of offshore wind energy, including 400 MW of floating wind for the Green Volt project off the East coast of Scotland which is being developed by Flotation Energy and Vårgrønn. 

Thibaut Cheret, OEUK’s wind energy manager, said, “North Sea energy from oil and gas is a British industrial success story. Given the right investment environment our members will create a similar industrial success story from the energy transition, unlocking more than GBP 200 billion in private capital before 2030, as well as helping to secure our domestic energy security and protect jobs”.

‘We need to speed up this process of annual strike price auctions, alongside speeding up all investment in homegrown energy and the energy supply chain, if we are going to meet our legally binding net zero targets,” Cheret added.

Funding is awarded through the government’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, which provides developers with subsidies for clean electricity projects across Britain with a built-in design to keep costs low for billpayers, according to the release. Launched in 2014, the CfD scheme ensures projects receive a guaranteed price from the government for the electricity they will generate, giving companies certainty and confidence to invest in the UK, according to the release. Contracts are awarded through a series of competitive auctions, where the lowest-price bids are successful, creating savings for consumers.

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