UK offshore wind power pot collects £460 million

• 9 years ago (2015-04-01)
• Junior Isles

Europe 1089 Renewables 776

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The UK government has announced that £463 million ($684 million) has gone into a fund for wind projects headed by the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB), which has already invested £200 million ($295 million) of its own capital. This is the first stage of a planned £1 billion fund that would be geared to develop offshore wind farms.

The GIB has transferred these investments directly into two existing offshore wind farms, which will give immediate cash yield for investors. The farms are the 90 MW wind farm in Rhyl Flats (North Wales) and the 317 MW Sheringham Shoal wind farm (Norfolk), both of which can produce enough energy to power 305 000 UK homes per year.

GIB's chief executive, Shaun Kingsbury, said: “Offshore wind is playing an important role in the UK’s energy infrastructure. By 2020 we expect it to be providing enough clean, green energy to power the electricity needs of 8.2 million homes across the UK... A sector this size needs a broad range of long-term investment and those investors need products they can confidently, and commercially, invest in – like this fund.”

Over the past year, the bank itself has pledged some £723 million across 22 green energy projects, increasing the total number that it is backing to 46, with a total combined value of almost £7 billion.

Government figures released at the beginning of 2015 demonstrated that renewables made-up nearly a fifth of the UK's energy mix for 2014, which set a new record.