The largest onshore windfarm in England in a decade has been awarded a government subsidy among 190 contracts for renewable energy projects, as Labour attempts to hit a goal of creating a virtually zero carbon power grid within four years.
The government said it would offer contracts to a record number of solar projects alongside support for onshore windfarms including the huge Imerys project near St Austell in Cornwall.
The project will be the largest to be built in England since Labour lifted an almost decade-long de facto ban on new onshore windfarms after returning to power in 2024.
The ban caused England’s onshore wind industry to collapse, and the Imerys project – developed by Clean Earth Energy – at 20 megawatts is dwarfed by many Scottish onshore windfarms that won contracts in the latest auction, the largest of which is 186 MW.
It will generate a fraction of the electricity of the 480MW West Burton solar farm, which also won a contract in the auction and will be the largest solar project ever supported by the UK government.
In total, contracts were awarded to 157 new solar farms, 28 new onshore windfarms and eight offshore windfarms after ministers doubled the amount of funding available to developers in a make-or-break auction for Labour’s goal to create a clean electricity system in Great Britain by 2030. The government also issued subsidy contracts to four tidal power projects.
The winners were informed on Tuesday morning, three weeks after the government awarded subsidy contracts to enough offshore windfarms to power 12m homes by the end of the decade. In total, the government’s new renewable energy contracts will supply enough electricity to power the equivalent of 16m UK homes.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “These results show once again that clean British power is the right choice for our country, agreeing a price for new onshore wind and solar that is more than 50% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas.”
Under the latest contracts, solar farms will be paid £65.23 a megawatt hour (MWh) in 2024 prices, while onshore windfarms will earn £72.24/MWh. If prices on the wholesale electricity market are below this price then developers will receive top-up payments levied on household energy bills, but if the market price is higher, bill payers will have the difference returned to them.
The subsidy prices for solar power 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 by more than 20% from its record lows in 2022, reflects the “changed macroeconomic conditions and supply chain pressures” facing the industry, according to Simon Virley, the head of energy at KPMG UK.
Virley said the auction “seems to have revealed a ‘new normal’ for the cost of large-scale onshore renewables” and it was no longer possible to bank on prices continuing to fall. “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-build gas or new nuclear,” he said.
The support prices for onshore renewables are well below those offered to offshore windfarms. Standard windfarms fixed to the seafloor will earn between £89.49/MWh and £91.20/MWh through the latest auction and a new generation of floating windfarms will earn £216.49/MWh.
Miliband said: “By backing solar and onshore wind at scale, we’re driving bills down for good and protecting families, businesses and our country from the fossil fuel rollercoaster controlled by petrostates and dictators. This is how we take back control of our energy and deliver a new era of energy abundance and independence.”
