Greenpeace UK has said it plans to take legal action against the Crown Estate, accusing the public body of “monopoly profiteering” from the auctioning of seabed rights for offshore wind projects, a system Greenpeace claims is pushing up energy costs and slowing Britain’s transition to clean power.
The environmental group argues that the Crown Estate, which manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is exploiting its position by running competitive auctions that allow developers to bid unlimited sums for the rights to build offshore wind farms. Greenpeace says that these uncapped “option fees” have generated record profits for the Crown Estate while inflating project costs and ultimately consumers’ energy bills.
The campaign group is calling for a review of the option fees that wind developers must pay, as well as the seabed auction process and procedures.
Greenpeace UK said that the current seabed leasing system risks loading unnecessary costs onto energy bills twice: through higher option fees and through incentivising wind farms in Scotland, where fees are capped.
“As energy demand is higher in England, the power generated in Scotland sometimes needs to be carried south, and when that’s not possible, wind turbines are paid to switch off”, the group said.
In a press release issued on 13 October, Greenpeace UK said that, as the Crown Estate switched to a price-uncapped competitive auction in Round 4, there was “a dramatic increase” in fees that the developers bid to pay, making the seabed the Crown Estate’s “ most lucrative source of revenue” .
In Round 4, which concluded in January 2023, the UK seabed manager made over GBP 1 billion (approximately EUR 1.15 billion) in 2024/25.
After six developers secured offshore wind project sites at the beginning of 2023 and committed to paying the option fees for them, UK media reported that King Charles III had asked that the Royal Family’s share of Round 4 earnings “be directed for wider public good” .
Still, King Charles’s official income will soon increase significantly with the earnings from offshore wind seabed leasing, Greenpeace UK says. According to figures from the organisation, the Royal Family’s income is expected to rise from this year’s GBP 86.3 million (approx. EUR 99 million) to GBP 132.1 million (approx. EUR 152 million) in 2025/6, primarily due to the profits generated from offshore wind.
“At the same time, the Crown Estate Commissioner’s pay has risen fivefold from around £385,000 a year in the period 2015-2020 to a staggering £1.9m in 2024/25”, Greenpeace UK stated on 13 October.
The organisation says it issued a legal warning after a lengthy correspondence and a face-to-face meeting with the Crown Estate management, and ahead of an auction that will require developers to bid for plots of seabed on which to build new wind farms.
According to Greenpeace, in its correspondence with the Crown Estate Commissioners, the group pointed out that the Crown Estate has a legal duty to support the UK in meeting its climate targets and to remove the monopoly value from its seabed leasing. However, the response it received from the estate’s managers states that the Crown Estate’s legal duty is to maximise profit, not help the government deliver on its climate ambition, Greenpeace UK says.
“The Crown Estate should be managing the seabed in the interest of the nation and the common good, not as an asset to be milked for profit and outrageous bonuses. We should leave no stone unturned in looking for solutions to lower energy bills that are causing misery to millions of households” , said Will McCallum , Greenpeace UK co-executive director.
“Given how crucial affordable bills and clean energy are to the government’s agenda, the Chancellor should use her powers of direction to ask for an independent review of how these auctions are run. If the problem isn’t fixed before the next round, we may need to let a court decide whether or not what’s happening is lawful.”