Greenpeace threatens to sue Crown Estate over offshore wind ‘profiteering’

Greenpeace UK said it has warned the Crown Estate that it is considering taking legal action unless the public body stops "monopoly profiteering" at the expense of bill payers and offshore wind developers.

The warning comes ahead of the UK’s Allocation Round 7 auction where energy firms are expected to bid for plots of seabed on which to build new windfarms. 

The Crown Estate manages all of the land and property belonging to the King, and provides revenue to the Treasury and the Royal Household. As the legal owner of the entire UK seabed outside of Scotland, it runs auctions to lease blocks of seabed to offshore wind developers, generating income from option fees and leasehold rents.

Greenpeace argues that the Crown Estate has exploited its monopoly position to charge hefty fees for leases of the seabed. It alleges this has led to a pricing system that has "massively boosted" the estate’s profits, as well as the pay of its executives and the Royal Household’s official income, while driving higher costs for the wind power sector and energy bill payers.

The campaign group is calling for a review of the way seabed auctions are run and of the option fees that wind developers must pay. It argues the current system risks loading unnecessary costs onto energy bills twice – both through higher option fees and by incentivising windfarms in Scotland, where fees are capped. “As energy demand is higher in England, the power generated in Scotland sometimes needs to be carried south, and when that’s not possible, wind turbines are paid to switch off,” said Greenpeace.

Greenpeace UK co-executive director Will McCallum said, “The Crown Estate should be managing the seabed in the interests of the nation and the common good, not as an asset to be milked for profit and outrageous bonuses.

“We should leave no stone unturned in looking for solutions to lower energy bills that are causing misery to millions of households. Given how crucial affordable bills and clean energy are to the government’s agenda, the Chancellor should use her powers of direction to ask for an independent review of how these auctions are run. If the problem isn’t fixed before the next round, we may need to let a court decide whether or not what’s happening is lawful.” 

In the first three auction rounds, the ‘option fee’ paid by bidders was capped. But in the fourth round that concluded in January 2023, the estate shifted to a price-uncapped competitive auction, leading to a dramatic increase in fees. As a result, the estate made over £1.0Bn (US$1.3Bn) in 2024/25. Greenpeace said that, as a result, “its profits have skyrocketed, turning the seabed into its most lucrative source of revenue,” while King Charles’s official income will jump from £86M this year to £132M in 2025/6, almost exclusively because of the profits derived from offshore wind. At the same time, the Crown Estate Commissioner’s pay has risen fivefold from around £385,000 a year in 2015-2020 to a £1.9M in 2024/25. 

The legal warning from Greenpeace comes after a lengthy correspondence and a face-to-face meeting with the Crown Estate management. The campaign group is asking for an urgent review of the bidding process, and for the excess profits from the last auction round to be invested in marine recovery.

Writing to the Crown Estate Commissioners, Greenpeace has pointed out the estate has a legal duty to both support the UK in meeting its climate targets and to remove the monopoly value from its seabed leasing. But in their reply, the estate’s managers have insisted its legal duty is to maximise profit, not help the government deliver on its climate ambition.

Greenpeace said this position appears to contradict what the then chief executive of the Crown Estate, Roger Bight, told MPs about this legal duty in 2010, “So we are quite clear, it is spelt out that we cannot exploit our monopoly position.”