The results of the latest auction round (AR6) of government subsidies to support new renewable energy projects in the UK is in, and the news is good. Much better than last year’s effort.
3.3GW of new solar, 1GW of new onshore wind, 3.4GW of offshore wind, and 400MW of floating offshore wind have been announced, alongside a couple of small tidal stream projects.
The guaranteed minimum prices are:
- £50.07/MWh for solar
- £50.90/MWh for onshore wind
- £58.87/MWh for offshore wind
- £139.93/MWh for floating offshore wind
- £172/MWh for the 28MW of tidal stream projects
In addition, 1.6GW of previously agreed offshore wind will receive higher subsidies – developers decided that the £37.35/MWh prices that they’d agreed in the fourth auction round in 2022 were no longer viable at that price. The mechanism allowed for them to rebid for 25% of the original project. Those minimum prices for that quarter of the capacity will now rise to £54.23.
To confuse things, all the prices quoted are in terms of prices prevailing in 2012. Prices as measured by CPI are up almost 40% over the past 12 years. In RPI terms that figure is 60%.
There have not been any announcements from listed renewables funds yet to say that they have projects in the list of 131 successful applications. There are some names we recognise – NextPower, for example, but in an environment where investors are clamouring for buybacks rather than supportive of new investments, it may be that we are no longer pulling our weight here – which is a real shame.
The full list is here
