Offshore wind pricing: EIR release

Information requested

On 27th September 2023, the Minister for Energy and the Environment, Gillian Martin, said this in the Scottish Parliament:

“That is in comparison with electricity generated from offshore wind, which we have in abundance in Scotland and on which we are planning to do an awful lot more. Such electricity is currently priced at £37.35 per megawatt hour.”

https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-inparliament/meeting-of-parliament-27-09-2023?meeting=15464&iob=131933#orscontributions_M5578E429P765C2519197

Please provide any evidence held by the Scottish Government substantiating the claim that offshore wind in Scotland is currently priced at £37.35/MWh.

Additionally, please provide the number wind farms in Scotland (on- or off-shore) which sold electricity at prices below £100/MWh during 2022.’

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

The answer to your first question is as follows:

The quoted price of £37.35 per megawatt hour (MWh) is based on the strike price for offshore wind in Contract for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 4, which commenced on 13 December 2021, with allocations concluding on 7 July 2022.

You also requested ‘the number [of] wind farms in Scotland (on- or off-shore) which sold electricity at prices below £100/MWh during 2022.’

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because we do not hold price data for individual projects or sites, nor is this data publicly available for all individual projects or sites to allow this number to be calculated. See Annex A for more information on this exception.

Annex A: Exceptions Applied
This exception applies with regards to your request for ‘the number wind farms in Scotland (on- or off-shore) which sold electricity at prices below £100/MWh during 2022’, because the information you have requested is not possessed by the Scottish Government, nor does another person hold it on behalf of the Scottish Government.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'.

Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the price of offshore wind, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.