Iberdrola Preparing Two East Anglia Offshore Wind Projects for UK’s Sixth CfD Round

Planning & Permitting

February 23, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

ScottishPower Renewables, Iberdrola’s company in the UK, is getting the East Anglia One North and East Anglia Two offshore wind projects ready for the upcoming auction round for Contracts for Difference (CfD).

This is according to project updates Iberdrola published as part of its financial results for 2023.

Iberdrola says “good progress is being made in the key engineering and design work” for the two projects and, while they were not presented in the UK’s fifth CfD Allocation Round (AR5), preparations are being made to take part in Allocation Round 6 (AR6).

The two offshore wind farms are part of the GBP 6.5 billion (around EUR 7.6 billion) East Anglia Hub project, which also includes East Anglia Three, currently in construction and expected to start delivering electricity in 2026. The 1.4 GW East Anglia Three was awarded Contract for Difference in July 2022.

The 800 MW East Anglia One North and the 900 MW East Anglia Two, proposed to be built more than 30 kilometres off the coast of Suffolk, received development consent in March 2022.

The UK’s fifth CfD round closed in September last year and saw the UK government awarding 3.7 GW of renewable energy projects, however, none of those were offshore wind farms as offshore wind developers placed no bids.

Round 5 comprised two auction Pots: Pot 1 for established renewable energy technologies, including fixed-bottom offshore wind, and Pot 2 for less established technologies, including floating offshore wind.

In November 2023, the government announced that it increased the maximum strike price for offshore wind projects in the next CfD auction by 66 per cent for fixed-bottom and by 52 per cent for floating wind projects.

In AR6, offshore wind will also be given a separate funding pot in recognition of the high number of projects ready to participate, the government said.

The government is expected to announce further auction details this year, ahead of Allocation Round 6.

In the UK, Iberdrola, through ScottishPower Renewables, owns the 714 MW East Anglia One offshore wind farm, which has been operational since 2020, and the 389 MW West of Duddon Sands, in operation since 2014, in a joint venture with Ørsted.

The company is also developing three projects with a combined capacity of 7 GW in Scotland after securing development rights in the 2022 ScotWind seabed lease auction. The projects being developed by Iberdrola include two large-scale floating wind farms in cooperation with Shell (the 3 GW MarramWind and 2 GW CampionWind) and a 2 GW fixed-bottom offshore wind farm MachairWind.