Iegor Riepin

The era of flat electricity demand is over. According to a new report by the International Energy Agency, global electricity demand is growing at the fastest pace in years due to the growth of electrification, heating and cooling demand, industrial processes, and digital infrastructure like data centers. To make progress on climate change, that demand must be met with clean energy.

A study has analysed offshore wind projects in 5 countries – the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium – to show that wind farms due to be built after 2020 are converging towards a range of €50-70/MWh. It wasn’t long ago that such low prices were only predicted for 2050, say Iegor Riepin, Felix Müsgens (Brandenburg University of Technology), Malte Jansen and Iain Staffell (Imperial College London), writing for Carbon Brief.

The offshore wind farms auctioned last September in the UK will most likely be the world’s first “negative subsidy” projects – wind farms that will pay money back to the government over their lifetime. This is a key finding of our new paper for Nature Energy, which assesses the competitiveness of offshore wind in mature markets, without the support of subsidies. The amount of renewable energy capacity is rapidly growing around the globe.