Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | MAY 2022 | 9 Energy interview with Aurora managing direc- tor Dan Monzani following the strategy's publication. The CCC's Thompson agrees with the business and energy secretary based on feedback from the offshore wind industry. Alongside the new headline target, the strategy outlines a series of steps which are designed to accelerate the delivery of the off- shore wind rollout. "The government's pledge to halve the time for offshore wind farms to secure plan- ning consent is probably more important" than the target itself," says Bell. Others are not so sure about the feasibil- ity of the government's ambitions. Aurora's Howard was already sceptical about the 40GW target, reckoning that 30 to 35GW is a more "plausible, high end" figure. "It is hard to believe that we will get there in that time frame," he says, adding that going beyond this will require a "significant" acceleration of the planning process and "very quick" decisions on the future shape of the grid infrastructure. Once stretches of the UK's seabed have been auctioned off by the Crown Estate, a lot of preparatory work must take place, such as environment assessments and geo-technical analysis, Howard says: "There is a limit to how quickly you can do these things unless the developer is going to take a really mas- sive risk. It's hard to see how you manage to deliver at a low cost of capital if you are tak- ing a significant risk." Howard also questions whether the sup- ply chain can deliver on the scale that the government wants, pointing out that the UK's maximum offshore wind deployment has historically been 1-2GW per annum. "Thirty gigawatts in five years is at least three times faster than we have ever built off- shore wind before," he says. This increased pressure to deliver, com- bined with escalating costs of materials like steel, means the government can no longer bank on a continuing fall in offshore wind costs. "The supply chain was already strug- gling to keep up with demand; the next auc- tion rounds may see costs start to level off if not reverse," says Bell. While the strategy shows that the grid upgrades required to deliver offshore wind are clearly being thought about, ministers need to get a move on, says Howard: "Even if you believe the numbers, we need urgent investment in storage and flexibility to have a system that works." Onshore wind One of the big disappointments for many is the absence of a concrete target for onshore wind in the security strategy. BEIS is under- stood to have pressed for 30GW of onshore wind. Instead the strategy stated that the government would support a "limited" number of onshore projects that could dem- onstrate strong community support, while ruling out a wholesale review of the plan- ning rules for the technology. Setting a target could have provided a "quick win", particularly because wind farms can be built more rapidly onshore, Howard says: "It's one of the tools in the kit that we are using less than we could." The slight so˜ening of the English plan- ning regime doesn't necessarily mean pro- jects will get built, because they will be competing for Contracts for Difference (CfD) and merchant power contracts with Scot- tish projects, which are which are also likely to be more lucrative, he says: "It may still be too high a bar for developers to clear: if it costs millions to bring onshore projects through the process, you will still go for the Scottish site. "You can still build in Scotland where the best resource is by some margin," says Howard. This is because the UK's richest onshore wind resources are in Scotland where there is more land and wind speeds tend to be continued overleaf New-build nuclear is the headline winner. Pictured is Finland's Olkiluoto 3 under construction, the first nuclear power plant to be built in Europe in the past 15 years. Although it suffered years-long delays, Olkiluoto started test production last month and should be fully operational in July.

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