Offshore Wind Cost Keeps Rising: GWPF

The Global Warming Policy Forum has published the latest data on current offshore wind energy capital costs, based on the sale of a 50% stake in the proposed 660-MW Walney Offshore Wind Farm Extension for £2bn ($2.6bn).

The sale price implies a capital cost of £5mn to £6mn/MW installed, making it one of the most expensive wind farms for which there is public data, it said November 9.

In summary, the report finds that for a standardised offshore wind farm, capital expenditure was rising up to about 2013, then began to fall a little each year thereafter, but this fall was offset by necessarily moving into deeper water, so the actual capex for projects is going up.

If the capex fall claimed is not real, then subsidies to wind haven’t worked and should be cut, GWPF's energy editor John Constable told NGW. "There is no other justification for subsidies except to accelerate cost reductions, and if it hasn’t worked, then further subsidy is not justified." 

Such data calls into question recent industry claims that costs have been falling, as seen in the current UK advertising campaign by a coalition of energy companies and green NGOs who claim that costs have dropped by 50%. The GWPF is challenging these claims, appealing a month ago to the Advertising Standards Authority.

The latest figures have important implications for the European and indeed global energy policies, said Constable. "Misleading claims of falling offshore wind costs appear to be a cynical tactic to defuse criticism of decades of multi-billion subsidies for wind investors. True or false, the obvious conclusion for governments all over the world is the same: cut all wind subsidies now.”

Leading British trade union GMB also recently disputed the UK's claim that the cost to consumers of offshore North Sea wind projects has fallen by 50% in the past two years.

William Powell