The UK government has just announced the results of its biggest-ever auction for new offshore wind projects. By doubling the budget at the eleventh hour, it managed to award contracts for a massive 8.4 gigawatts of new capacity. Energy secretary Ed Miliband described it as “a monumental step towards clean power by 2030”.

But despite the headline success, this outcome actually makes the government’s own clean power targets harder – not easier – to meet. While the auction successfully awarded contracts, it does nothing to address the bottlenecks that mean these projects won’t start producing electricity for many years.

German company RWE dominated the auction. It has been awarded contracts for 6.9GW of capacity, securing revenue for its Dogger Bank South, Norfolk Vanguard and Awel y Môr projects. The only other big winner was SSE, for the next phase of its Berwick Bank project in the North Sea, currently the largest planned offshore wind farm in the world.

The government’s “contracts for difference” scheme guarantees developers a fixed price for electricity to........

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