Look at the bright side.... the capacity was cheaper than the general pot for offshore wind in AR6 by about £6.50/MWh in today's money, which will of course be the excuse for permitting the over-award. The total award under the Permitted Reduction heading (1,579MW) exceeded the reduction from AR4 (1,452MW), which also included some solar and onshore wind. The "loser" was EA3, which only re-secured about half the capacity it relinquished. Presumably it bid another tranche at a higher price.
I'm sure we'll be told it was all within the rules. THe formal budget revision notice is here:
Two separate Maxima, each of £1,100m, will be applied to Offshore Wind Permitted Reduction projects and new Offshore Wind projects in Pot 3. The Maxima will be applied on a monetary budget (£ million) basis, to operate as ‘hard’ constraints.
What this means in plain English is that there are in practice two separate clearing prices for the two technologies, but as the overall budget is the same as the Maxima, there is no real constraint other than the overall budget on the total volume to be procured. The detailed rules that procure that outcome are here (for those with a head for legalese)
It's a common thread....financial cronyism, clearly at play during the 'pandemic' with contracts awarded to contacts. There's a (dirty) ocean between the 'cronies' and the public, which they prefer to keep in the dark. We are deemed to be the 'unknowables'. Thanks for the informative and enlightening investigations.
Great piece of detective work, David. Assuming your FOI request bears fruit and confirms your suspicions, it is definitely worth a wider audience. If the MSM isn't interested, X is an obvious possibility, and it also sounds the sort of thing UKColumnNews would be interested in highlighting.
It would be worthwhile Andrew Neil getting this information. He has a large platform on X and while being fair gives a honest account of the issues surrounding British Electricity generation and supply.
If a few people with accounts on X, were to post this to him it might get his attention.
Look at the bright side.... the capacity was cheaper than the general pot for offshore wind in AR6 by about £6.50/MWh in today's money, which will of course be the excuse for permitting the over-award. The total award under the Permitted Reduction heading (1,579MW) exceeded the reduction from AR4 (1,452MW), which also included some solar and onshore wind. The "loser" was EA3, which only re-secured about half the capacity it relinquished. Presumably it bid another tranche at a higher price.
I'm sure we'll be told it was all within the rules. THe formal budget revision notice is here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a8f4ebce1fd0da7b592fc4/CFD-allocation-round-6-budget-revision-notice.pdf
Two separate Maxima, each of £1,100m, will be applied to Offshore Wind Permitted Reduction projects and new Offshore Wind projects in Pot 3. The Maxima will be applied on a monetary budget (£ million) basis, to operate as ‘hard’ constraints.
What this means in plain English is that there are in practice two separate clearing prices for the two technologies, but as the overall budget is the same as the Maxima, there is no real constraint other than the overall budget on the total volume to be procured. The detailed rules that procure that outcome are here (for those with a head for legalese)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65e86d323649a20011ed6329/cfd-ar6-allocation-framework.pdf
Thank you super-sleuth David! To add to Michael and David's comments below, I also suggest Private Eye.
I’m sure we’ll be told that Baroness Brown recused herself from the Hornsea 3 decision blah di blah.
It's a common thread....financial cronyism, clearly at play during the 'pandemic' with contracts awarded to contacts. There's a (dirty) ocean between the 'cronies' and the public, which they prefer to keep in the dark. We are deemed to be the 'unknowables'. Thanks for the informative and enlightening investigations.
Looking forward to DEZNS use of “commercial confidentiality “ excuse to evade FOI
Great detective work. That's a lot of coincidences you've uncovered there. We shall all be very interested in the responses you receive from DESNZ.
Well done David, thanks for keeping these fools feet to the fire!
I wouldn't call them fools, I think we are the fools for letting it happen!
Well done. Not just cronyism-it smells of corruption. Just as well it’s in a “good cause”
Great piece of detective work, David. Assuming your FOI request bears fruit and confirms your suspicions, it is definitely worth a wider audience. If the MSM isn't interested, X is an obvious possibility, and it also sounds the sort of thing UKColumnNews would be interested in highlighting.
Who would have guessed that the noble pursuit of 'clean' Green energy could become so . . . . well, muddied and dirty!
On Twitter now:
https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/1833408446642983146
It would be worthwhile Andrew Neil getting this information. He has a large platform on X and while being fair gives a honest account of the issues surrounding British Electricity generation and supply.
If a few people with accounts on X, were to post this to him it might get his attention.