The price of offshore wind power has halved, making those giant inshore turbine arrays we love to hate look competitive with new nuclear power for the first time. The headline number in this story is £57.50, which is the guaranteed electricity price per megawatt hour bid by two windfarm ventures in the government’s latest ‘contracts for difference’ subsidy auction. Both due for first delivery in 2022-23, these projects at Hornsea on the East Yorkshire coast and Moray East off the north of Scotland, are between them theoretically capable of powering 2.4 million homes. Just two years ago, windfarms were bidding up to £120 per megawatt hour in comparable auctions; their slashed pricing today can be set alongside the £92.50 fix that underpins the finances of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, whose projected cost has now topped £20 billion and whose likely completion date is drifting gently towards 2027 and beyond.
I have long argued for pressing on with Hinkley Point, on the basis that it was the only serious option for securing a substantial slice of future UK electricity demand from one domestic source, in the face of a looming energy gap created by the closure of old nuclear and coal-fired plants.
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