UK backs biggest English onshore windfarm in a decade among 190 green energy projects | Energy industry
England’s largest onshore wind farm in a decade has received a government grant among 190 contracts for renewable energy projects, as Labor tries to meet its goal of creating a virtually zero-carbon electricity network within four years.
The government said it would offer contracts for a record number of solar projects as well as support for onshore wind farms, including the huge Imerys project near St Austell in Cornwall.
The project will be the largest built in England since Labor lifted a nearly decade-long de facto ban on new onshore wind farms after returning to power in 2024.
The ban has caused the collapse of England’s onshore wind industry, and the 20-megawatt Imerys project – developed by Clean Earth Energy – is dwarfed by many of Scotland’s onshore wind farms which won contracts at the latest auction, the largest of which is 186MW.
It will produce a fraction of the electricity from the 480MW West Burton solar farm, which also won a contract at the auction and will be the largest solar project ever supported by the UK government.
In total, contracts have been awarded for 157 new solar farms, 28 new onshore wind farms and eight offshore wind farms after ministers doubled the amount of funding available to developers in a decisive auction for Labor’s aim of creating a clean electricity system in Britain by 2030. The government also awarded grant contracts to four tidal energy projects.
The winners were informed on Tuesday morning, three weeks after the government awarded subsidy contracts to enough offshore wind farms to power 12 million homes by the end of the decade. In total, the Government’s new renewable energy contracts will provide enough electricity to power the equivalent of 16 million UK homes.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “These results show once again that British clean energy is the right choice for our country, agreeing a price for new onshore wind and solar systems that is more than 50% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas. »
Under the latest contracts, solar farms will receive £65.23 per megawatt hour (MWh) at 2024 prices, while onshore wind farms will earn £72.24/MWh. If wholesale electricity market prices are lower than this, developers will receive top-up payments from household energy bills, but if the market price is higher, bill payers will be returned the difference.
Solar subsidy prices are slightly lower than last year’s auction, when projects were offered £69.76/MWh for their electricity, while onshore wind contracts are slightly higher. In last year’s auction round, onshore wind developers were offered £70.92/MWh.
The rising cost of wind power, which is up more than 20% from its 2022 all-time low, reflects “changing macroeconomic conditions and supply chain pressures” facing the industry, according to Simon Virley, head of energy at KPMG UK.
Virley said the auctions “appear to have revealed a ‘new normal’ for the cost of large-scale onshore renewables” and that it was no longer possible to bank on continued price declines. “Despite this, onshore wind and solar remain the cheapest large-scale renewables available to meet the 2030 target, with prices well below the costs of offshore wind, new gas build or new nuclear,” he said.
Support prices for onshore renewables are much lower than those offered to offshore wind farms. Standard wind farms fixed to the seabed will fetch between £89.49/MWh and £91.20/MWh through the latest auction and a new generation of floating wind farms will fetch £216.49/MWh.
Miliband said: “By supporting large-scale solar and onshore wind, we are cutting bills for good and protecting families, businesses and our country from the fossil fuel roller coaster controlled by petro-states and dictators. This is how we take back control of our energy and usher in a new era of energy abundance and independence.”
