Bigger funding pot for east of England wind farms
Companies hoping to build wind farms off the East Anglian coast under the government’s new funding regime will have a bigger pot to vie for, according to East of England Energy Zone.
An extra £25m has been made available as the first projects under the new Contracts for Difference funding mechanism compete for £325m investment for low carbon technologies - £25m more than predicted when the auction budget was set out last October.
The East of England is poised to hear which contracts – if any - are awarded for new wind farms off its coast when the results of the maiden CfD auction are revealed in two weeks.
Industry experts hope that at least one of the east of England projects believed to have bid – East Anglia One, Galloper or Race Bank – will be among the winners announced on February 26.
But, with the extra money in the pot in a five-year bidding process, they are hopeful that all three could be winners by 2020.
James Gray, inward investment director for the East of England Energy Zone, said the extra money and the five-year process of the CfD mechanism was a strong message about the future of wind energy – and the thousands of jobs and economic boost the new wind farms would bring.