Announcing the capital grants, energy minister Stephen Timms said he had to find extra funds to meet the six bids in full. Only £44 million was available in the original pot of grant funding for offshore wind. Timms said the extra £15 million comes from a separate budget earmarked for renewables development and there will still be "additional resource available" for further round one projects if they gain planning consent.
Grants of £10 million each go to: SeaScape Energy, owned by EDF, for its Burbo project in Liverpool Bay; AMEC Wind's project at Lynn, off Skegness, Lincolnshire; RES and British Energy's project at Inner Dowsing, also off Skegness; EDF Energy's project at Cromer off Norfolk; the Rhyl Flats project by National Wind Power (NWP); and a capital grant worth £9 million goes to GE Wind for its wind farm at Gunfleet Sands, off Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
The £10 million grant for Rhyl Flats replaces a £4 million grant awarded in 2002 which NWP renegotiated because it its earlier bid was too low. The latest grants meant that capital subsidies totalling £117 million have been awarded to 12 projects off the UK coast, each to consist of 30 turbines.
