Upcoming renewables auction boosted 50 per cent to £1.5bn

Allocation Round 6 (AR6) will take place in August, with developers bidding to move forward with renewable energy projects for fixed electricity prices under the government's Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. The budget increase will see funding for offshore wind rise to £1.1bn (up £300m), funding for established technologies such as onshore wind and solar increase to £185m (up £65m) and emerging technologies such as floating offshore wind and tidal receiving £270m (up £165m).

It is hoped the increased investment will help kickstart the UK’s stalled renewables pipeline after a disastrous CfD round in 2023 under the previous government. The scheme’s design awards contracts through a series of competitive auctions, where the lowest price bids are successful. However, last year’s CfD round saw just 3.7GW of new renewables allocated, down from 10.7GW the year before. The huge drop was largely attributed to zero bids coming from the offshore wind sector, where the maximum price developers could bid was cut by £2 to £44 per MWh.