Ministers urged to act fast on energy reform to help Scottish wind farms

Ocean Winds said Scottish projects currently face a "double whammy" of higher grid charges and greater uncertainty.

It previously commissioned research suggesting reform of the transmission charging system could save electricity consumers £16.2 billion between 2028 and 2050.

Trade body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) wants to put a maximum limit on transmission charges for generators in places like northern Scotland. It argues this would give investors more certainty over costs.

Projects in Scotland currently pay more because they are further from big population centres, and this can add as much as £1 billion per GW to the cost of a project over its lifetime, according to OEUK.

This in turn makes it harder to hit the UK’s clean power targets by discouraging investment in Scotland’s wind farms.

"It's not only that Scottish projects face higher charges, which is the normal headline - they are also particularly subject to uncertainty," said Adam Morrison, the UK country manager for Ocean Winds. "So there's a kind of double whammy."

There are two main consequences to this, he told Scotland on Sunday.

"There are good projects that might not come forward just because of the level of uncertainty that they face, and then there are projects that will come forward that are made more expensive than they needed to be,” he said.

The UK Government has pledged to "drive forward a review of these charges to provide stronger incentives for investors to build generation where it is needed, supporting a cheaper system for all".

Mr Morrison urged ministers to act quickly. He said: "They have to move very fast now, because this has been going on, you've probably seen, it's been reported on for a decade. I've been talking about it for 10 years.

"We need an end in sight so that at least we have more certainty, and we don't have energy market signals that are stopping us from doing things that it's clear that both governments want us to do.

"It feels clear to me that both Scottish government and UK government want more offshore wind in Scotland, so we need to grasp the nettle, that the energy market is kind of opposing that at the moment. So they need to grasp that nettle and we need to do it relatively fast."

He said the UK has a "great opportunity to be a good place to invest at the moment", adding: "The UK could be a really attractive market for investment at the moment, if government acts to provide that confidence and doesn't prevaricate.

"We can't spend five years debating what the future grid charges look like, we need to do something with urgency that gives people proper long-term confidence over it."

David Whitehouse, chief executive of OEUK, said offshore wind “is a real success story for the UK”, adding: “I think we need to embrace it. I think it we have a real opportunity to grow. I think it has real, long-term value for the UK economy.”

A spokeswoman for the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “Offshore wind projects are crucial to delivering the UK’s mission to become a clean energy superpower.

“We are working closely with Ofgem to reform transmission network charges quickly, which will protect consumers and secure investment across the country, including Scotland, as we deliver our clean power mission.”