Britain launches offshore wind farm incentives scheme

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain opened an incentive scheme on Thursday for offshore wind projects, seeking to persuade developers to provide the investment to meet an ambitious goal of decarbonising the country's energy system by 2030.

The scheme, called the 'Clean Industry Bonus', will provide successful bidders with an initial 27 million pounds ($33.5 million) in funding for every gigawatt (GW) of capacity from offshore wind projects.

Britain has put offshore wind at the heart of its 2030 clean energy plan, setting out in December that it hopes to boost capacity from around 15 GW at present to 43-50 GW by the end of the decade.

The country's grid operator last year described the government's ambition to generate power from 95% clean sources as a huge, but achievable, challenge.

The bonus scheme aims to address some of the challenges Britain is likely to face in meeting that goal by rewarding developers who also commit to building the supply chain infrastructure their projects need.

Britain is due to hold a fresh round of renewable auctions, in which developers bid for government-backed price guarantees for the electricity produced, later this year. The new funding will be delivered through the contracts awarded in that auction.

($1 = 0.8069 pounds)

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Peter Graff)