UK content

Alongside its contribution to UK energy needs, the UK’s offshore wind sector is also bringing local economic benefit, in terms of investment and local job creation. To help track progress, the industry tracks UK content.

UK content is defined in Methodology for measuring the UK content of UK offshore wind farms (BVG Associates for Department of Energy and Climate Change, The Crown Estate and RenewableUK, May 2015, available online at https://bvgassociates.com/publications/). Developers agreed that from 2015 all UK offshore wind farms would report their UK content data for aggregation by RenewableUK.

Aggregate 48% UK content - typical for recent projects

Aggregate 60% UK content - typical aspiration for projects constructed in 2030

The first chart shows a breakdown of UK content for a typical recent UK offshore wind farm. The overall UK content is 48% of undiscounted lifetime spend. The key contributions typically are:

  • Operations, maintenance and service, where much of the activity is close to the wind farm site,
  • Installation and commissioning, where the UK has several leading marine contractors and equipment suppliers, and
  • Turbine, where most blades and some towers are supplied from the UK.

The second chart shows the UK content aspiration for a UK offshore wind farm in construction in 2030, based on the intent of the sector deal published February 2019 (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) and an estimate of the cost breakdown for a typical wind farm at that point. Overall, the UK content equates to 60% of undiscounted lifetime spend. The key changes in contributions are anticipated to be:

  • Turbine, where all towers, most blades and 20% of nacelle, hub and power take-off value is provided by the UK
  • Balance of plant, where all foundations and a third of cables are supplied from the UK, and
  • Installation and commissioning, where marine contractors from all locations maximise their UK supply chain.