Britain’s offshore wind industry suffered a blow after ministers failed to heed warnings from some of the world’s biggest renewable energy developers that the annual auction was set too low to reflect their soaring costs. No energy companies submitted bids for offshore wind projects, the government confirmed on Friday morning.
The three biggest offshore wind developers in the UK – SSE, ScottishPower and the Swedish company Vattenfall – were forced to sit out the bidding after ministers refused to increase the maximum price for the auction despite a 40% increase in the cost of manufacturing and installing turbines because of inflation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
No new offshore windfarms will go ahead in the UK after the latest government auction, in what critics have called the biggest clean energy policy failure in almost a decade.
Britain’s offshore wind industry suffered a blow after ministers failed to heed warnings from some of the world’s biggest renewable energy developers that the annual auction was set too low to reflect their soaring costs.
Keith Anderson, the chief executive of ScottishPower, said: “This is a multibillion-pound lost opportunity to deliver low-cost energy for consumers and a wake-up call for government.
However, the lack of interest was widely expected, with sources warning on Thursday night that the maximum price had been set too low to attract any bidders.
Ana Musat, RenewableUK’s executive director, told the Guardian earlier this week that the “perfectly avoidable” financial dilemma facing the British wind industry risked removing the UK’s global lead in offshore wind at a time of increased competition from the US, Europe and parts of Asia.
“We can’t have a ‘boom and bust’ cycle and expect to maintain investor confidence in the UK and grow our supply chains,” Musat said.
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