The government announced on July 30 that the budget for the sixth auction round (AR6) of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) program will see an increase of £500 million, to £1.5 billion.
It is the largest ever budget for the scheme and includes £1.1 billion for offshore wind energy, allocating more budget to it than all previous auction rounds combined. Ed Miliband, the Energy Minister, called the previous auction round (AR5) a “catastrophe” because no offshore wind was awarded a contract.
The AR5 funding round – which admittedly only had £227m in funding – saw 56 ground-mounted solar projects receive support, securing almost 2GW of capacity out of a total of 3.7GW.
The AR6 budget includes a £65 million increase for onshore wind and solar, bringing the total available for these technologies to £185 million, but ultimately this could all go to solar. There is £270 million available for emerging technologies such as floating offshore wind and tidal energy, an increase from £165 million.
With a budget seven times higher than AR5, Energy Minister Michael Shanks said the budget increase will boost industry confidence.
Miliband said: “We support building the industry in Britain, with this year’s auction receiving the largest budget yet. This will restore Britain as a world leader in green technologies and deliver the infrastructure we need to increase our energy independence, protect bill payers and become a clean energy superpower.”
The solar strike price will increase by 30% from £47 per megawatt hour (MWh) to £61/MWh. When it was established, it was hoped that the higher strike price would be more sustainable and economically viable for future solar projects.
When the previous government announced the CfD AR6 budget of just over £1 billion, Gemma Grimes, director of policy and delivery at Solar Energy UK, expressed her disappointment that the budget contained “virtually nothing to support one of the fastest growing sectors of the United Kingdom to support: solar energy.”
The solar sector has had a positive month, with development consent orders (DCOs) issued for three Nationally Important Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), followed by proposed changes to planning rules for solar projects that Solar Energy UK says will bring clarity to developers.
In addition to large-scale solar energy, the Labor government has promised to “unleash a solar roof revolution”. The ministers want to introduce solar-related standards for new-build homes from next year.
Miliband said: “We will encourage builders and homeowners in whatever way we can to deliver this win-win technology to millions of addresses across Britain, so people can provide their own electricity, reduce their bills and tackle climate change at the same time. help combat it. ”
Some of this story was original published on our sister siteCurrent±.
