In the 18 months since I became energy secretary, the government has made a simple argument: that if we want to bring down energy bills for good, Britain needs to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels and instead build up clean homegrown power that we control.
We know that bills rocketed when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because in the international fossil fuel markets, Britain is a price-taker, not a price-maker. Renewables and nuclear, on the other hand, offer a chance for Britain to stand on our own two feet in the world – making and setting the price of our own energy.
Over the last year and a half, a well-funded rightwing network has waged a relentless war against this argument. When Keir Starmer set out our mission for clean power by 2030, it said it couldn’t be done, or that even if it could it was the wrong choice.
Today’s historic offshore wind auction has proved the doubters wrong. The government has secured a record-breaking 8.4GW of offshore wind, enough to power the equivalent of more than 12m homes, the largest amount of offshore wind procured in any auction ever in Britain, or indeed Europe. Especially considering the difficult global context in which the industry finds itself, this is a hugely significant milestone for offshore wind in Britain and around the world.
The billions of pounds of private investment that this historic auction unlocks will provide the foundation for a new era of energy sovereignty and abundance for our country. It ensures that the next generation of Britons will grow up in a country that controls its own energy destiny, and produces enough to meet our roaring demand for new homes, new towns and new industry.
A lot of nonsense is said about the cost of renewables. The key fact in our auction is this: the average price we have secured for fixed offshore wind projects is £90.91 per megawatt-hour – significantly cheaper than the cost of building and operating a new gas plant.
The unavoidable issue we face is that for years there hasn’t been enough investment in Britain’s energy system, while at the same time power demand is expected to more than double by 2050. Those who want us to stop building renewables need to reckon with the fact that there is no alternative to building new energy infrastructure in Britain. And it is clear offshore wind remains significantly cheaper to build and operate than new gas.
Today’s auction includes fixed offshore projects in every part of Great Britain: Dogger Bank South off the coast of Yorkshire and Norfolk Vanguard off East Anglia, two of the largest offshore windfarms in the world; Berwick Bank in the North Sea, the first new Scottish project since 2022; and Awel Y Môr, the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade.
We’ve also secured pioneering floating offshore wind projects in Scotland and Wales, putting Britain in pole position to lead in the emerging technologies of the future.
This points to an industry roaring back under this government after the fiasco of 2023’s auction under the Tories, which failed to deliver a single offshore wind project. These results put us firmly on track to deliver the clean power system we need for 2030 and beyond.
And as we take these long-term decisions, we are cutting bills in the short term too – taking an average of £150 of costs off annual energy bills from April and expanding the warm home discount to give six million of the poorest families an additional £150 off their bills.
This record result also represents a major step forward for our industrial strategy, as we seize the opportunities of clean energy to meet the demand of the British people for the good jobs of the future. These projects will create thousands of jobs for engineers, technicians and factory workers and unlock £22bn of investment in Britain, as we advance towards the 100,000 offshore wind jobs our mission will support by the end of the decade.
These results form part of a central new dividing line in British politics. Reform UK and the Conservatives want to wage war on clean energy, leaving Britain strapped to the fossil fuel rollercoaster, destroying the clean energy jobs we are creating and betraying our young people and future generations by giving up on tackling the climate crisis.
Labour is brave enough to face down the naysayers because clean power is the right choice for lower bills, energy security, good jobs and the climate. Today we’ve proved the doubters wrong again – and we will continue to do so.
