Britain boosts wind farm incentive funding to $720 Million

After a higher-than-expected demand, Britain more than doubled the funding available to stimulate investment in offshore wind project to 544 millions pounds ($721,78 million).

The country hopes to increase capacity from 15 GW to 43-50 GW in the next decade.

Orsted's Hornsea 4 Project, one of the largest in development, was cancelled last week. The Danish company stated that it was not economically viable to continue due to rising construction costs.

The government's investment incentive program, which it calls the "Clean Industry Bonus", could be expanded from its initial budget of 200 millions pounds to 544 millions pounds. This would help increase the viability of new project.

The scheme will support the economics behind projects that bid in Britain's annual renewable subsidy tender, which will take place later this year.

Clean Industry Bonus: Successful bidders will receive an initial funding of 27 million pounds for each gigawatt (GW), or capacity, from offshore wind projects.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said that developers can invest in areas where they are most needed or in cleaner supply chain, such as traditional oil and natural gas communities, former industrial areas, ports and coastal towns.

In a government statement, Ana Musat said that the additional funding could help secure billions of private investment into new factories making components for the UK offshore wind industry. ($1 = 0.7537 pounds) (Reporting By Susanna Twidale)

(source: Reuters)