United Kingdom

Following the election of a new government in July 2024, the UK has seen a series of reforms aimed at delivering its ambitions for up to 50 GW of offshore wind and around 30 GW of onshore wind by 2030. These targets are part of the Prime Minister's wider 'Clean Energy Mission' to achieve at least 95% low-carbon energy generation and build on the UK's successful foundations in electricity decarbonisation to date.

Statistics published in January 2025 by the UK's National Energy System Operator (NESO) show that wind outperformed gas for the first year ever in 2024, providing a record 30% of Britain's electricity, up from 28% in 2023, while gas produced just 26.3%. Clean power sources in total provided 58% of the country's electricity, with coal producing only 0.6%, as Britain's last coal-fired power station was decommissioned last September.

In just over 20 years, the UK has built a total of 43 offshore wind farms while, since 2016, the industry has invested over £50 billion (USD 64.6 billion) in new offshore wind farms. The country intends to show global leadership, particularly in offshore wind, by establishing a new Global Clean Power Alliance and collaborating bilaterally with India, Brazil and others. In January 2025, the government made its submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), setting out a detailed list of policies and measures in the UK's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels.

Onshore and offshore wind

The new government made its intentions clear early on by lifting England's de facto ban on onshore wind in July 2024, which had been in place for the previous nine years. It later confirmed that onshore wind projects over 100 MW would be reintroduced into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime this year, a decade after they were removed.

The budget for the country's most recent clean energy auction (Allocation Round 6) was increased to a record £1.55 billion, ensuring the UK's flagship Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme was able to secure 9.6 GW of new renewable energy capacity for the country in 2024. In total, 131 renewable energy projects won contracts, including Green Volt, the world's largest commercial floating offshore wind project. The recently launched Clean Industry Bonus allows offshore wind projects to access an additional £27 million per GW of capacity in revenue support to bolster industrial investment and low-carbon supply chains.

Last year, the UK reached the historic milestone of 30 GW of wind generation capacity, sufficient to meet the annual power needs of more than 26 million homes and reduce annual carbon emissions by more than 35 million tonnes.