UK presents plans for subsidy reform to speed up green energy projects

OSLO (Reuters) - The British government on Friday presented plans for reforms of its flagship Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme to remove planning barriers and bring green energy projects, especially offshore wind farms, online faster.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said it is proposing to relax the eligibility criteria on planning consent for fixed-bottom offshore wind and to increase the CfD contract term beyond the current 15 years.

CfDs are government-backed price guarantees for developers for the electricity produced.

It also wants to change the way budgets for offshore wind are set and published, including allowing the government to view bid information in anonymised form.  

The UK last year awarded CfD contracts to a record number of projects totalling 9.6 gigawatts (GW), most of it for offshore wind.

A new, seventh round (AR7) is planned for later this year, while the government has also introduced a scheme to support the domestic renewable energy industry.

"Our bold new reforms will give developers the certainty they need to build clean energy in the UK, supporting our mission to become a clean energy superpower and bring down bills for good," Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said.

The UK already has 30.7 GW of offshore wind either installed or committed, with a further 7.2 GW of capacity consented, compared with a targeted capacity of 43-50 GW to meet its clean power by 2030, the ministry said.

The latest plans also propose enabling CfD support for onshore wind projects looking to increase capacity, so-called repowering.

The government, as a temporary measure, also wants to remove the ability of generators with existing CfDs to enter surrendered capacity from previous allocations rounds into AR7.

Stakeholders are invited to consult on the reforms to the CfD until March 21, with a government response expected ahead of the AR7 round, the DESNZ said.

(Reporting by Nora Buli; editing by David Evans)