Today, the UK Government published the results for the CfD Allocation Round 7 (AR7), awarding a record volume of new offshore wind capacity.
Here is Aegir Insights’ breakdown of the AR7 auction results:
- The government has chosen to nearly double the originally announced support budget for fixed-bottom wind from GBP 900m to GBP 1,790m, meaning the AR7 budget surpasses the one from AR6 by far. This upwards adjustment in the CfD budget has allowed for the biggest ever offshore wind CfD-award in UK history with 8.2 GW of fixed-bottom capacity and close to 200 MW of floating capacity being awarded.
- Among the winners, RWE stands out as taking up most of the CfD-awards. While RWE's projects made up a large share of the CfD pipeline (approximately 11 GW out of the total 25 GW), its share of the awards is quite notable with partly or full ownership of five out of six awarded fixed-bottom projects.
- Given that commercial-scale floating was not in scope for AR7, it is promising that two smaller sites, Pentland and Erebus, located in planned floating hubs secured CfDs, supporting concept maturation and fabrication learnings.
Congratulation to the winners!
This is great news for the UK offshore wind sector and a good start to 2026 for the industry as a whole.
However, the UK government’s post-bid budget adjustment strategy should be used more as a one-off approach to increase the auction success, rather than common practice. Using this same strategy in future rounds (AR8 and following rounds) could otherwise reshape bidding behavior as developers will price in the probability of support budget increases, affecting the credibility of announced caps, incentivize strategic bidding and potentially increase the price for offshore wind development.
Client-exclusive Insights
Aegir Insights’ clients have access to a new Insights report, diving into the CfD AR7 auction results across fixed-bottom and floating projects, analyzing competitive implications with strike price analysis utilizing Aegir Quant™.
Additionally, Aegir clients have access to a client-exclusive Wavelength Intelligence Briefing on Tuesday 20 January at 10 am, giving a debrief of the CfD AR7 results as part, featuring Market Analyst, Signe Tellier Christensen, and Head of Client Engagement, David Vestergaard Thomsen.
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