From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

I looked at the 2020 Annual Accounts for the London Array a few months ago, and we now have the latest set for y/e December 2021.

You may recall that there are four equal shareholders, Orsted, RWE, Masdar and CDPQ, respectively Danish, German, Aby Dhabi and Canadian owned. The London Array does not file its own accounts, instead each shareholder has set up its own company to report on its share of the business. Below is the Orsted set:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06638251/filing-history

Note how gross profit has nearly doubled year on year, on the back of a 43% increase in revenue, due to higher market prices, as they note:

We need to bear in mind that prices really only took off in the summer of 2021, so the full year effect won’t become apparent till last year’s accounts are filed:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/wholesale-market-indicators

This year they have not published the breakdown of revenue, as they did in the previous year, which showed £66 million from Renewable Obligation subsidies:

According to REF figures, London Array produced 2153 GWh in 2021. As Orsted’s quarter share of the revenue was £123 million, this means that the London Array’s total revenue was £492 million, at an average of £228/MWh.

This breaks down to about £110/MWh from subsidies and £118/MWh for sale of electricity. I would expect the latter to jump to about £200/MWh for last year.

As it is, London Array received some £236 million in subsidies in 2021, along with an excess profit from higher prices of about £160 million. All of which has to be paid for on our energy bills.

And London Array is just one of the wind farms benefitting from obscene subsidies, at the same time as raking in excess profits they have done nothing to earn.

Altogether there is 19 GW of wind farms subsidised this way; by contrast London Array is tiny, just 630 MW.

Based on these accounts for the London Array, the wind sector, both onshore and offshore, will have made excess profit of around £3.6 billion in 2021, on top of the ROC subsidies also amounting to £3.6 billion.

And we pay for it all.