No offshore wind in newest UK inexperienced power public sale
by AFP Workers Writers
London (AFP) Sept 8, 2023
No offshore wind energy initiatives acquired public funding within the newest spherical of assist for British inexperienced electrical energy initiatives, which jeopardises plans to decarbonise the facility sector by 2035, environmental teams warned Friday.
The measure may additionally find yourself costing customers extra, mentioned campaigners.
With offshore wind on the coronary heart of Britain’s plans to take away fossil fuels from electrical energy manufacturing by 2035, Greenpeace UK’s coverage director Doug Parr described the end result as a “monumental failure”.
Business had warned forward of time that the worth had been set too low for offshore wind, mentioned environmental teams.
Solely a 3rd as many initiatives as final yr acquired funding, they added — so the public sale was a failure that endangers the federal government’s goal of doubling offshore wind by the top of the last decade.
Activist group Britain Remade estimated that the failure of the public sale would result in an additional billion kilos in electrical energy prices for customers as higher-cost fossil gas era capability might want to fill the hole.
There have been no offshore wind bids submitted on this yr’s public sale, which business gamers put all the way down to the worth phrases.
“The economics merely didn’t rise up,” Keith Anderson, chief government of Scottish Energy, mentioned on Friday.
– ‘Inept’ –
The federal government put the blame on inflation making offshore wind uncompetitive and insisted it remained dedicated the know-how.
Power and Local weather Change Minister Graham Stuart added within the assertion that offshore wind remained “central” to Britain’s ambition to decarbonise its electrical energy provide.
The federal government mentioned that “whereas offshore and floating offshore wind don’t function on this yr’s allocation, that is in step with comparable leads to nations together with Germany and Spain, because of the worldwide rise in inflation and the affect on provide chains”.
Constructing and sustaining offshore wind generators is dearer and their electrical energy manufacturing prices are thus greater. Onshore wind, photo voltaic, and geothermal initiatives acquired British public funding this yr.
The price of supplies used to make wind generators, equivalent to aluminium, copper and metal, have soared within the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Because of price pressures and inept authorities coverage, this public sale spherical has utterly flopped — denying invoice payers entry to low-cost, clear power and placing the UK’s legally binding goal of decarbonising energy by 2035 in better jeopardy,” Greenpeace’s Parr mentioned.
“It leaves the UK extra depending on costly, imported fossil gasoline.”
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