The government has launched a further 12-week consultation on remote islands’ access to Contracts for Difference (CfD) but published detailed budgets for the next auction round covering offshore wind, wave and tidal on the UK mainland.
Industry body, Scottish Renewables said the delay will leave developers and communities on the remote islands of Scotland, “bitterly disappointed”.
Scottish Renewables chief executive Niall Stuart said: “Developers and communities on the Scottish remote islands will be bitterly disappointed that Government has put off a decision on allowing projects on Scotland’s islands to compete for long-term contracts for renewable energy. After years of work on this issue, and many ministerial pledges to resolve it, we still seem no further forward to unlocking investment on Scotland’s islands – home to some of the best wind, wave and tidal resources in Europe.
“The wave and tidal sectors are still at an incredibly early stage in their development, and simply not ready to compete with offshore wind on cost alone. If we want to continue the development of the UK’s world-leading wave and tidal sectors, then we now need government to look at how it will support the development and roll out of the technology to get it to the stage where it can compete in the future.”
Scottish Renewables also emphasised that the government’s decision not to run an auction round for onshore wind and solar “makes no sense”.
Renewable UK also expressed disappointment at the decision, saying that: “Any delay means those communities won’t receive these benefits. We need to ensure that this opportunity is offered to them.”
Renewable UK chief executive Hugh McNeal said: “These ground-breaking technologies can replicate the cost reduction we’re seeing in offshore wind and deliver industrial benefits to Britain. We can’t risk falling behind and handing our global lead to other countries.”
Developers of remote Scottish Island projects currently face higher grid connection costs than those on the mainland and had been awaiting an announcement on a specific Scottish Islands CfDs.