Offshore Wind at Forefront of UK’s State-Owned Clean Energy Company’s Partnership with Crown Estate

July 25, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

The UK government will today (25 July) introduce a bill to establish Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean energy company. Ahead of issuing the bill, the government revealed a partnership between the new company and The Crown Estate which is estimated to lead to as much as 20-30 GW in new offshore wind seabed leases by 2030.

The partnership between Great British Energy and The Crown Estate will also see the public sector taking on a new role, carrying out additional early development work for offshore wind projects.

“This will ensure that future offshore wind development has lower risk for developers, enabling projects to build out faster after leasing and crowding in private sector investment. It will also help boost new technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, wave and tidal energy,” the UK government stated in a press release on 25 July.

Under the terms of the partnership agreement, The Crown Estate will establish a new division named Great British Energy: The Crown Estate and, besides the development and buildout of clean energy projects, the two partners will invest in ports and supply chains to unlock strategic bottlenecks to speed up the delivery of existing projects.

The UK currently holds second place globally and the first place in Europe in installed offshore wind capacity (around 15 GW), and has one of the biggest offshore wind targets for 2030. Since 2022, the UK has a 2030 target of 50 GW but the new Labour government is set to increase this to 60 GW, 55 GW for fixed-bottom and 5 GW for floating offshore wind.

According to data from RenewableUK, released in June last year, the UK’s pipeline of offshore wind projects in various stages of development is around 100 GW.

The new state-owned clean energy company, which will be headquartered in Scotland, is backed with GBP 8.3 billion (almost EUR 9.9 billion) of new catalysing investment over this Parliament to own and invest in clean power projects in regions across the UK, according to the government.

The partnership between Great British Energy and The Crown Estate has the potential to leverage up to GBP 60 billion (approximately EUR 71 billion) of private investment into the UK’s energy projects.

As for the clean energy company itself, the government plans to back energy generation projects in the UK and bring profits back to the British people through the state-owned Great British Energy. In Scotland, the UK government is in discussions with the Scottish government and Crown Estate Scotland on how the company could help to support new development and investment within Scotland.

The legislation on the clean energy company will cement the five key functions it will have: project development, project investment, local power plans, building supply chains, and exploring how Great British Nuclear (a state-owned nuclear energy and fuels company) and Great British Energy will work together.

The Great British Energy Bill will also include the Secretary of State having the ability to set Great British Energy’s strategic priorities to ensure it remains focussed on the government’s aim to speed up the delivery of homegrown clean energy power in the UK.

The UK government says it is already legislating to give both Great British Energy and The Crown Estate the powers they need to rapidly deliver. In this regard, the UK will today (25 July) also introduce the Crown Estate Bill which will remove some of the restrictions on The Crown Estate’s activities and expand its investment powers and grant borrowing capabilities to invest in public infrastructure, including essential marine investment to help support the acceleration and growth of offshore wind capacity by 2030.