Celtic Sea floating wind boom ‘within reach’

A fivefold-plus expansion of existing plans to boost floating wind capacity off the Welsh coast to 20GW is “well within reach” if the UK government puts the right strategy in place, the climate change minister in the country’s devolved government has said.

Julie James told the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee on Thursday (19 January) that 20GW of floating offshore wind generation is “certainly possible” in the Celtic Sea, which lies between Ireland, Wales and southwest England.

The Crown Estate has already identified five areas of seabed that could deliver 4GW in the Celtic Sea by 2035 and has said scope exists for up to 20GW by 2045.

Giving evidence to the committee’s inquiry into floating offshore wind, James said: “20GW is well within reach and if we had a strategy to take us from 4 to 20, we would be able to get investment streams in for that level for infrastructure and the supply chains.”

A dedicated, “over-arching” strategy that sets out a greater scale of ambition in the Celtic Sea would spur development of Wales floating offshore wind supply chain, she said.

But she added that the renewable energy supply chain is being squeezed by tensions between the Crown Estate’s seabed licensing and the government’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction processes.

“We have a conflict between maximising the money the Crown Estate can get from opportunities in the Celtic Sea and the need to deliver budget at the lowest possible price in the CfD round.

“Companies offer the highest possible amount to the Crown Estate to get the opportunity and then offer the lowest possible price to the CfD process and the people squeezed in the middle are the supply chain,” she said, adding that the two processes should be better aligned.

Renewables investors also wanted more certainty than can be offered through the current regime of annual CfD bidding rounds, the minister said: “They need much more certainty that the CfD revenue support will continue into the future. They don’t want individual yearly rounds, they want to know how long the process will be so that people can see what the future opportunities are and that it’s worth putting investment into the supply chain for 25 years and not for four.”

And she warned that a “holistic” solution is required to ensure there is sufficient capacity in the grid to bring onshore power generated by floating wind farms.

Adding that the “worst scenario” would be for such power to go to the Republic of Ireland, rather than the UK, James said it was important to ensure that grid infrastructure is “fit for purpose”.