Offshore wind already cheaper than onshore – Shapps

The new business and energy secretary of state has claimed that offshore wind procured through the next Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction round will be cheaper than equivalent power generated onshore.

After a House of Commons statement on boosting energy independence on Tuesday (29 November), Grant Shapps was pressed repeatedly to end the government confusion surrounding whether it is relaxing planning rules in England for onshore wind.

Ministers face a potentially sizeable backbench rebellion by Tory MPs over an amendment to the levelling up and regeneration bill, which would make it easier to obtain consent for onshore wind farms.

Responding to shadow energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband’s accusation that a wider roll out of onshore wind is being held up by “dinosaurs” in the Conservative Parliamentary party, Shapps said strike prices for offshore wind could be lower than any other type of renewable power in the next CfD round.

“The cost projections on new forms of energy supply show that offshore wind is the cheapest available in the next likely bidding round,” he said, adding that the turbines now being deployed offshore are too large to be transported and erected onshore.

“They are not buildable onshore, which is one of the reasons why the cheapest way to build them offshore to produce energy offshore is to build these mammoth turbines.”

Until now, onshore wind has been reckoned to be cheaper than offshore because the costs of installing turbines is lower on land than at sea.

During yesterday’s appearance, Shapps also said that he is looking at restrictions on the size of solar panels that can be installed on roofs under permitted development rights, which avoid the need for a full-scale planning application.

Noting that he has had panels on his own house’s roof for the past 11 years, the secretary of state said the technology’s deployment needs to be expanded on both domestic and non-domestic properties.

Junior business, energy and industrial strategy minister George Freeman said businesses would not face “shocking” rises of up to “tenfold” in their energy bills this winter or next.

“The business department absolutely gets how much difficulty businesses are facing through energy,” he said.

Responding to Shapps’ comments that modern wind farms are too big to build onshore, Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth told the BBC they are “nonsense” given the very large such developments currently being built in Scotland.