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Greenpeace UK has said it plans to take legal action against the Crown Estate, accusing the public body of “monopoly profiteering” from the auctioning of seabed rights for offshore wind projects, a system Greenpeace claims is pushing up energy costs and slowing Britain’s transition to clean power.
The environmental group argues that the Crown Estate, which manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is exploiting its position by running competitive auctions that allow developers to bid unlimited sums for the rights to build offshore wind farms. Greenpeace says that these uncapped “option fees” have generated record profits for the Crown Estate while inflating project costs and ultimately consumers’ energy bills.
The campaign group is calling for a review of the option fees that wind developers must pay, as well as the seabed auction process and procedures.
Greenpeace UK said that the current seabed leasing system risks loading unnecessary costs onto energy bills twice: through higher option fees and through incentivising wind farms in Scotland, where fees are capped.
“As energy demand is higher in England, the power generated in Scotland sometimes needs to be carried south, and when that’s not possible, wind turbines are paid to switch off”, the group said.
In a press release issued on 13 October, Greenpeace UK said that, as the Crown Estate switched to a price-uncapped competitive auction in Round 4, there was “a dramatic increase” in fees that the developers bid to pay, making the seabed the Crown Estate’s “ most lucrative source of revenue” .