Ambitious « moonshot » targets

As published on LinkedIn by Everoze Partner Daniel Bacon, November 2024

It’s always exciting to see an ambitious “moonshot” target, and this week’s 2030 vision report by NESO is certainly that – UK electricity 95% decarbonised by 2030, built on a foundation of 43 – 50 GW of offshore operational. Yes, operational. So how do we feel about that?

If you take the myriad assumptions at face value, NESO is of the view that this is credible and whilst it’s one heck of a stretch, even hitting it several years late would be an amazing achievement. At Everoze, we’re right behind contributing to the moonshot, and are delighted to see the endeavour. We’ve put our thinking caps on about what needs to happen and what we can do to help make them happen, and over the next few weeks we’ll delve into each area in turn – regulatory processes, grid connections, capturing economic value for a just transition, supply chain, firmness of power and energy costs.

First though, a sense check on what it means for the projects sitting in the UK’s offshore wind pipeline

Getting from 15 GW currently to 43 – 50 GW of offshore wind operating by the end of 2030 is going to require all projects currently in construction (9 GW), those with CfD contracts but yet to enter construction (8 GW), those already consented (8 GW) and most if not all of those who have submitted planning applications (16 GW). All that will have to have secured consent and grid within 18 months, CfDs secured in AR8 at the latest to take FID by mid-to-end of 2027, and construction rates will have to increase from 1 – 2 GW/year over the last few years, to 5 – 11 GW/year in 2028-2030. For context, in 2023, the whole European market installed 3.8 GW, of which UK contributed <1 GW. Challenging? Er, a little bit, yes.  Allowing for (inherent) slippage of several years will help smooth out some of the issues above, but even then it would be fair to label this a “moonshot”. And we’ll come back to challenges associated with supply chain and grid challenges in future posts.

The 20 GW of projects which haven’t yet submitted consent applications – mostly Scotwind and floating wind projects – will remain essential to wider decarbonisation beyond 2030 as clean electricity demand doubles, to back-fill for project capacity curtailed through the consenting process, and for any under-delivery against the equally demanding onshore wind goals. This part of the UK pipeline may feel there is a hint of “picking winners” inherent in the timeline, but schedule slippage by several years will smooth this out a bit and provide space for project success. Geographic diversification will remain important.

In summary, we strongly believe in the strategic endeavour, and we’re here to support it. If you want to talk to us about how we can help, please get in touch.