UK Government Unveils £1.08 bn Wind Funding Round to Reach Net Zero

The UK government has announced a major funding initiative to accelerate offshore wind development, allocating £1.08 billion (in 2024 prices) each year from 2028/29 to 2031/32, and £900 million in 2032/33. This funding supports two categories: traditional offshore wind (Pot 3) and floating offshore wind (Pot 4). Administrative strike prices are set at £113/MWh for conventional offshore wind and £271/MWh for floating offshore wind in this round.

Alongside the main budget, a “Clean Industry Bonus” has been introduced, amounting to £20.1 million per gigawatt of capacity applying, with a total reserved budget of over £544 million. A portion of this is ring-fenced for floating offshore wind to support the more costly supply chain.

This move reflects the government’s strategy to transform its energy generation mix so that offshore wind becomes a backbone of the country’s electricity system and pave the way toward achieving “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050.

The multi-year funding envelope - over £4 billion committed through 2032/33 - provides the visibility that developer capital allocation and supply-chain build-out require.

Ring-fencing a share for floating offshore wind is particularly significant: the technology remains more expensive per MWh but unlocks deep-water sites off the UK west coast that cannot be reached with fixed-bottom foundations. The £271/MWh floating strike price reflects that cost differential honestly rather than forcing artificial parity.

The Clean Industry Bonus is a subtler but strategically important addition. Tying additional payments to UK supply-chain commitment addresses one of the more persistent policy concerns: capacity build-out that relies heavily on imported components delivers less industrial and employment benefit than domestically anchored projects. Getting the UK offshore-wind supply chain established in step with generation capacity is essential to long-term net-zero delivery.

For developers, EPC contractors, financiers and industrial supply-chain participants, Cognitud's energy transition, market intelligence and responsible investment teams help clients evaluate CfD auction economics, structure supply-chain investment cases aligned with Clean Industry Bonus criteria, and prepare ESG disclosures that give lenders and offtakers visibility into the UK offshore-wind pipeline as it scales toward the 2030 targets.