Miliband’s monster auction puts UK offshore wind back on track

The results of the auction, which were announced this morning, 14 January 2026, are a major step towards ending the country’s reliance on volatile fossil fuels and will deliver the largest procurement of offshore wind energy in British – and European – history. The previous record for offshore wind capacity secured in a British auction was 7 GW, in the 2022 auction.

In a statement, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said the results “show offshore wind is cheaper to build and operate than new gas,” noting that the cost of building and operating a new gas-fired power station is £147 (US$198) per megawatt hour (MWh), whereas the results for fixed offshore wind in the auction were £90.91/MWh on average, 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas.

The strike price for fixed offshore wind is however around 11% higher than contracts agreed in the previous auction, Allocation Round 6, in 2025, although independent analysis by Aurora Energy Research and Baringa shows that offshore windfarms generating at a strike price below £94/MWh are saving billpayers money. Moreover, the higher strike price reflects the higher cost of capital, inflation in the supply chain and the fact that some of the new projects awarded CfDs are further from shore and more complex than earlier projects.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said, “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty. This is a historic win for those who want Britain to stand on its own feet, controlling our own energy, rather than depending on markets controlled by petrostates and dictators. It is a monumental step towards clean power by 2030. Clean, homegrown, power is the right choice for this country to bring down bills for good and this auction will create thousands of jobs throughout Britain.”

Head of Mission Control for Clean Power Chris Stark said, “This is a stonking result for delivering on our mission for clean power by 2030. Amid global headwinds and the pressures facing the offshore wind sector in recent years, we’ve secured a record amount of capacity at a competitive price for the consumer. We need more offshore wind to meet the increasing demand for electricity in the years ahead; this result powers us towards a future of clean, secure, energy abundance and less reliance on foreign imports.”

The big winner in the auction was RWE, which secured Contracts for Difference (CfD) for a total of 6.9 GW of capacity, including the Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Vanguard West projects, as well as its two Dogger Bank South projects, all of which are located in the North Sea, and its Awel y Môr project in the Irish Sea. SSE secured a 20-year contract for 1.4 GW of offshore wind from Phase B of its Berwick Bank windfarm, this being the only successful CfD award to a Scottish fixed-bottom offshore wind project in this auction round.

Other important winners included the 92.5-MW Pentland floating offshore windfarm, being developed by Highland Wind Ltd and majority owned by funds managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which also secured a CfD. The Pentland project, located off the coast of Dounreay in Caithness, will now progress towards a final investment decision in 2027, with operations expected to commence in 2030. The 100-MW Erebus floating wind project in the Celtic Sea, being developed by Blue Gem Wind, also secured a CdD. 

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