Offshore Wind Auction Analysis
Deep-dive research on how governments have designed offshore wind auctions — the prize components, bidding mechanics, risk allocation, and outcomes that shaped each market. 9 auctions covered.
2025Round 516 min readThe Crown Estate Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5 for the Celtic Sea
UK Round 5 was a Crown Estate seabed leasing auction for three Celtic Sea floating wind sites, concluded in 2025. Its defining twist was a rising-price online format where bidders could switch sites and quit with a final offer, before a direct award filled the site left without a tender. Gwynt Glas and Equinor won in the auction, Ocean Winds later took the remaining site, and all three pay £350/MW/year.
2025Round 783 min readUK CfD Allocation Round 7
UK AR7 was a 2025 offshore wind contracts for difference auction awarding 8,437.5 MW across fixed-bottom and floating projects. Its standout design feature was sharing anonymised fixed-bottom bid data with government mid-round, enabling the Pot 3 budget to rise from £900 million to £1.79 billion a year. RWE led 6.865 GW across five project vehicles, while fixed-bottom offshore wind cleared at £91.20/MWh in the rest of Great Britain and £89.49/MWh in Scotland.
2024Round 667 min readUK CfD Allocation Round 6
United Kingdom's 2024 Allocation Round 6 CfD auction awarded 15-year price-support contracts for fixed and floating offshore wind. A new route let projects with older CfDs give up part of their awarded capacity and rebid it at higher prices, helping reverse AR5's zero-offshore-wind outcome. The round cleared 4,942 MW of fixed offshore wind at £54.23/MWh and £58.87/MWh, plus Green Volt's 400 MW floating project at £139.93/MWh.
202322 min readGermany N-12.1 (2023)
Germany’s 2023 N-12.1 offshore wind concession auction awarded a 2,000 MW North Sea site. After eight bidders tied at €0.00/kWh in the first stage, it moved to Germany’s first offshore dynamic bidding procedure, running 65 online rounds. North Sea OFW N12-1, a TotalEnergies subsidiary, won with €1.875 million per MW, or €3.75 billion in total.
2022Round 822 min readUS BOEM New York Bight ATLW-8 Lease Sale
US BOEM's New York Bight lease sale was a pure seabed auction awarding six offshore wind lease areas in 2022. Unlike support auctions, it offered no price support or offtake contract: winners secured only federal seabed leases and then had to compete separately in state power tenders. Six bidders won 488,201 acres for a combined $4.370 billion, with individual bonus bids ranging from $285 million to $1.1 billion.
2022Round 910 min readUS BOEM Carolina Long Bay ATLW-9 lease sale
US BOEM's Carolina Long Bay multiple-factor seabed lease sale awarded two offshore wind lease areas off the Carolinas in 2022. It was the first US BOEM sale to use workforce training and domestic supply chain commitments as a 20% bidding credit applied to qualifying cash bids. TotalEnergies Renewables USA won OCS-A 0545 with a cash bid of $160 million and Duke Energy Renewables Wind won OCS-A 0546 at $155 million, totalling $315 million.
2022Round 446 min readContracts for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 4
United Kingdom's AR4 Contracts for Difference auction awarded 6,994 MW of offshore wind across five projects in 2022. The standout was a £37.35/MWh offshore wind price in 2012 prices, about 70% below AR1's 2015 clearing price, before Norfolk Boreas was halted in July 2023 after a SEK 5.5 billion write-down. Winners were Hornsea 3, East Anglia 3 Phase 1, Norfolk Boreas Phase 1, Inch Cape Phase 1, and Moray West.
202124 min readTender for the Thor Offshore Wind Farm
Denmark's Thor tender combined a concession and 20-year price-premium contract for one North Sea offshore wind site, awarded in 2021. Its most distinctive feature was that five finalists all bid the legal minimum 0.01 øre/kWh, so the winner was chosen by lottery. Thor Wind Farm I/S, an RWE-led consortium, won 1,000 MW, with DEA estimating DKK 2.8 billion would flow to the state over the contract life.
2021Round 417 min readThe Crown Estate Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4
UK Crown Estate Round 4 was a seabed leasing auction that awarded six offshore wind projects totalling 7.98 GW in 2021. Its defining feature was a multi-round daily sealed-bid process that awarded one project per cycle, with bidders offering annual £/MW option fees rather than power prices. RWE, Green Investment Group-Total, EnBW-BP and Offshore Wind Limited were chosen, with EnBW-BP clearing at £154,000/MW/year.