SRC-166

Contracts for Difference allocation round 5 (AR5) results, 2023.

Commissioned by UK Government. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-0276 The price the UK government agrees to pay offshore wind farms, per unit of electricity actually generated, dropped sharply from 2015 to 2022, then rose again through 2024 and 2026. In 2023 no offshore wind developer was willing to build at the price on offer, so zero megawatts were awarded that year. These are real, dated contract prices from competitive auctions, not projections, but they are for electricity as generated, not for guaranteed firm delivery.
• CLM-0277 The price the UK government agrees to pay solar farms, per unit of electricity actually generated, has stayed close to 46-50 pounds per megawatt-hour (in fixed 2012-price terms) across the last four auction rounds, from 2022 to 2026. This is a real, dated contract price, not a projection, but it is only paid for electricity as generated, with nothing extra for guaranteed delivery.
• CLM-0278 The price the UK government agrees to pay onshore wind farms, per unit of electricity actually generated, roughly halved from 2015 to 2022, then rose again through 2024 and 2026. These are real, dated contract prices from competitive auctions, not projections, but they are for electricity as generated, not guaranteed firm delivery.
• CLM-0279 A few UK renewable-energy auction contracts are for technologies that can generate more steadily than wind or solar: waste-to-energy plants, biomass-with-heat plants, and a handful of small pilot geothermal plants in Cornwall. Their contracted prices, in fixed 2012-price terms, range from about 46 to 119 pounds per megawatt-hour. These are the best real UK price signals in the register for something closer to firm power, but they are all small in scale and none of them carries a formal obligation to deliver on demand.

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