Wind farm operators with businesses in the UK are demanding tax breaks from the government to counteract their rising costs. Supply chain inflation has caused wind turbine prices to rocket in the past year, in line with every other sector of the economy, and now wind farm operators want public funds to support their businesses.
Several commercial developers, including Orsted and Vattenfall, want the UK government to offer tax breaks or higher subsidies to their businesses in order to meet the rising cost challenge that threatens British wind development projects.
Several of the companies that won UK government contracts last year to build new renewables generation power from next year have said that they will struggle to deliver projects under the existing terms.
Wind turbines have shot up in price due to supply chain inflation throughout the past 12 months. At the same time, finance costs have risen because of escalating interest rates. Those involved in industry talks have told ministers that planned capacity secured via last year's government auctions was now in jeopardy.
If the new renewable development projects are delayed or cancelled, the UK will experience a significant setback to its plans to hit challenging climate targets and boost energy security through home-grown clean energy.
The government's 2022 energy subsidy auction was the biggest in Britain to date and it contracted sufficient green energy capacity to deliver low-carbon, low-cost energy to 12 million homes. The largest proportion of the new energy was contracted within wind energy, at around 7GW of the entire 11GW contracted.
Wind developers are arguing that their costs have increased by up to a third in the past year, making it hard to justify the delivery of their contracts without additional government support.