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    Offshore wind gets £400m windfall from Crown Estate
    United Kingdom

    Offshore wind gets £400m windfall from Crown Estate

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    1. BestButtons on

      Article contents:

      *Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor, June 17 2025, The Times*

      Britain’s offshore wind industry has received a boost from the King’s Crown Estate, which is investing £400 million in the supply chain for wind turbines at sea.

      A law passed in April means that for the first time the Crown Estate can borrow from the Treasury. In the past it had to sell assets to generate capital for investments but can now use its cash reserves for investing in energy and decarbonisation projects, given the flexibility to borrow as and when required.

      Much of the £400 million will go towards upgrading infrastructure at ports used to handle increasingly big turbines, some of which are nearly twice the height of the London Eye. A smaller portion will go towards early-stage schemes that include everything from how blades are made to the vessels that crews use to maintain offshore wind farms.

      Many wind turbine components are manufactured in Denmark and Germany, but some towers, cables and other parts are made in the UK. Nearly 40,000 people now work in Britain’s offshore wind sector, up from 32,000 two years ago, according to figures from RenewableUK. On Tuesday the industry group said it would also invest £300 million in the sector’s supply chain by 2035.

      The Crown Estate has a strong self-interest in offshore wind power. The body owns the seabed surrounding the UK and charges renewable energy firms money to develop projects in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. A separate body, Crown Estate Scotland, handles the Scottish seabed.

      The leases for wind farms were a key reason the Crown Estate’s profits doubled for the 2023-24 financial year, as they grew in importance in a portfolio that includes everything from shopping centres to farmland.

      Britain is second only to China for installed offshore wind capacity. The technology is seen by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, as vital for meeting Labour’s goals of clean power supplying 95 per cent of electricity by 2030 and offshore wind capacity quadrupling by then.

      Miliband’s hopes were dealt a blow when a vast wind farm planned for the Yorkshire coast was scrapped last month, with its Danish owner blaming higher interest rates and supply chain costs.

      However, the Crown Estate has set an ambitious goal of offering an additional 20 to 30GW of offshore wind leases by 2030, up on an existing 11.8GW. 30GW would be enough to power all 28 million households in the UK.

      “We will not unlock the full economic, social and environmental benefits of offshore wind without collaboration and investment into the UK supply chain,” said Ben Brinded, head of investment at the Crown Estate, as he announced the £400 million investment.

      Offshore wind is on the verge of overtaking turbines on land, with 15.6GW of installed capacity compared with 15.8GW onshore. Labour’s publicly owned energy firm, GB Energy, whose £8.3 billion budget survived the spending review, has talked of a “huge opportunity” from investing in floating turbines, which can be placed in deeper waters. It recently announced the offshore wind supply chain would receive a £300 million investment.

      Separately on Tuesday, the government said it had reached a memorandum of understanding with China over action on climate change, including implementing Sir Keir Starmer’s target of an 81 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2025. The agreement did not touch on commercial deals between the UK and China.

      Miliband said: “We are witnessing the coming of age of Britain’s green industrial revolution.”

    2. Inglorious555 on

      I’m not normally a fan of the Royal Family but this is a rare win from them

      It would be great if they’d also do the same for Solar as well as the grid upgrades that are being implemented to better accommodate this uptick in renewables

      Edit: I’ve re-read it all, the royal family are still the worst, they’re billionaires they could solve all of the UK’s issues with a flick of the wrist if they wanted, they should be doing more than this and not for profit

    3. cosmic_monsters_inc on

      And is this going to translate to cheaper electric or just more bills as the cost gets loaded onto us one way or another? Can’t power companies build their own shit with all their massive profits.

      I’d love it if this stuff was state owned, paid for by taxes or bills based on usage and just fed the grid for everyone to use at cost. Can’t see it though.

    4. Miyatz on

      Good. The royal family are billionaires, they should be investing more in this country.

      Clean energy, homelessness, poverty – they could do so much more to fix the problems in this country than just standing around waving at us from a balcony

    5. dtr1002 on

      This didn’t happen out of the blue. The crown estates make millions every year and maybe the government made the royals invest using the estate?

    6. talligan on

      UKs offshore waters are going to be massively important in the coming carbon transition and investing in it now is exactly the thing we should be doing.

    7. JackDaniels0049 on

      I thought this was great, until I found out they would actually make money from it.
      They charge to the use the seabed for the wind turbines.
      Crazy, but I guess it’s a fair assumption that the only reason rich people do anything, is to enrich themselves even more.

    8. mpanase on

      Look at that, the Royal Family investing in their own business.

      Business they can run because we gave them ownership of our nearshore, foreshore and seabed. Something that no other (democratic-ish) country has done.