UK Sets CfD Round 3 Opening Date

The third Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation round in the UK will commence on 29 May, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), said.

BEIS earlier issued a GBP 60 million draft budget proposal for the third CfD round. A final budget notice will be issued no later than ten working days before the commencement of the allocation round, BEIS said.

The budget will be allocated for less established technologies, such as offshore wind, remote island wind, tidal and wave technologies.

BEIS plans to award the budget proceedings for the periods 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, with 6GW of capacity set to be allocated.

The administrative strike price for offshore wind is expected to amount to GBP 56 per MWh for 2023-2024 and GBP 53 per MWh for 2024-2025.

The UK has committed to allocating GBP 557 million to support bi-annual CfD auctions for offshore wind and remote island wind, beginning from the third CfD round in 2019 and going throughout the 2020s.

The next round is scheduled for 2021 and every two years or so from then on. Depending on the price achieved, the auctions are expected to deliver up to 2GW of offshore wind each year in the 2020s.