UK Wind Power Lobby Asks Government for Help to Halt Indus Slowdown

08 April 2009

The lobby group for U.K. wind power producers and developers have asked the government to increase financial support for the industry as the economic downturn puts projects on hold and means the country may miss its renewable energy targets.

"Large scale wind deployment is vital to reaching the U.K.'s goal of generating up to 40% of our electricity from renewables by 2020," said Maria McCaffrey, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association, or BWEA, in a statement.

"The current economic climate has caused a number of developers to put projects on hold," because both onshore and offshore project costs have risen because of the depreciation of sterling against the euro and by a tightening in availability of project finance," she said.

The BWEA asked the government to reduce investor risk by underwriting minimum power prices for onshore wind projects.

To support offshore wind farms, the BWEA asked the government to reduce the financial burden on developers by spreading the cost of subsea grid connections across all power network users, provide capital grants to developers whose projects are suffering from cost increases and increase the level of subsidy under the Renewables Obligation scheme.