For offshore wind, in addition to relaxing eligibility criteria on planning consent for fixed-bottom projects, the reforms would also change the way budgets are set and published, including allowing the government to view bid information in anonymised form.
The UK government also plans to extend phasing to floating wind in CfD Allocation Round 7 (AR7). Currently, only fixed-bottom offshore wind projects are eligible to phase and this would enable floating wind projects to be built in several stages to de-risk project delivery.
The CfD reforms also include increasing the CfD contract term beyond the current 15 years, which would reduce overall project costs and give longer market certainty once contracts are awarded.
“The UK already has 30.7 GW of offshore wind either installed or committed, with a further 7.2 GW of capacity consented, against a target capacity range of 43 to 50 GW needed for clean power by 2030. These reforms will enable the UK to go further and faster to secure its position as a clean energy superpower” , the DESNZ said in a press release on 21 February.
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