Energy: Wind Farms
House of Lords
Lord Donoughue (Labour)
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the total financial subsidy provided to the top 15 recipients of subsidy under the scheme for promoting wind farms for electricity generation (excluding public limited companies); and what the estimated amounts are for each of those recipients.
Lord Marland (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Energy and Climate Change; Conservative)
The Renewables Obligation (RO) is currently the main financial mechanism by which the Government incentivises the deployment of large-scale renewable electricity generation. It is a market based subsidy; Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) are issued in respect of generation, and are trade-able commodities which have no fixed price. Electricity suppliers purchase ROCs, but the amount a supplier pays for a ROC is dependent on bi-lateral commercially confidential negotiations between the supplier and generator.
The RO is administered by Ofgem, who do not hold information on whether the operator of a generating station is a public limited company. The table below lists for the period December 2010 to November 2011, the top 15 wind generating stations (both onshore and offshore), the operator of the station, and an estimate of the value of ROCs received based on the provisional data from Ofgem. The total estimate for these 15 stations is £387 million out of total RO support in 2010-11 of £1285 million 1.
| Generating Station | Organisation listed as operator of station | Number of ROCs issued to date for generation that took place between Dec 2010 and Nov 2011 | Estimate of RO support (£m) (Nos of ROCs x ROC value for 2010-11 of £51.48) |
| Thanet Offshore Wind Farm | Vattenfall Wind Power Ltd | 1615892 | £83m |
| Walney Offshore Wind Phase I | Walney (UK) Offshore Windfarms Ltd | 771861 | £40m |
| Whitelee Windfarm | ScottishPower Renewables (UK) | 606033 | £31m |
| Robin Rigg Offshore Wind Farm (East) | EON UK plc | 502059 | £26m |
| Gunfleet Sands I | SeaScape Energy Ltd | 472978 | £24m. |
| Inner Dowsing Offshore Wind Farm | Inner Dowsing Wind Farm Ltd | 453663 | £23m |
| Lynn Offshore Wind Farm | Lynn Wind Farm Ltd | 445637 | £23m |
| Robin Rigg Offshore Wind Farm (West) | EON UK plc | 411494 | £21m |
| Burbo Offshore Windfarm - A | SeaScape Energy Ltd | 407483 | £21m |
| Rhyl Flats Wind Farm | Npower Renewables Ltd (Wind) | 377794 | £19m |
| Crystal Rig II Wind Farm | Fred Olsen Renewables Ltd | 356238 | £18m |
| Gunfleet Sands II | SeaScape Energy Ltd | 297801 | £15m |
| Barrow Offshore Windfarm - A | Barrow Offshore Wind Limited | 293555 | £15m |
| Kentish Flats Ltd- A,C | Vattenfall Wind Power Ltd | 254817 | £13m |
| Hadyard Hill Windfarm - A,C | SSE Generation Ltd | 240767 | £12m |
1 These estimates use the HMT/DECC definition of RO support cost, where the total RO support cost in a given year equals the Obligation level for the year in ROCS times the buyout price. This is also equal to the ROC value times ROCs submitted for compliance.