Assessing the cost savings from lowering the cost of capital through public ownership on UK offshore wind through reconstruction of historical auction price curves

Renewable electricity (RE) generation projects, such as solar PV and offshore wind, are typically more capital intensive than fossil power generation, meaning that the cost of capital has a disproportionate impact on project economics and the cost of electricity. Many countries have developed strong policy and regulatory environments to reduce the risk profiles of RE project and so scale investment. In the UK, the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme is widely regarded as having played a key role in driving RE development. However, RE deployment in the UK has been almost exclusively private driven, with some arguing that this has led to a “privatisation premium” in infrastructure and electricity costs compared to those under direct public funding (due to the higher cost of commercial capital). In this dataset we estimate the cost savings from public ownership for UK offshore wind, by reconstructing historical strike price-supply curves for allocation rounds AR1-7.