Crown Estate gets £100 million from offshore wind power

Phew. Good news all around. No more hunting around the back of the sofa for spare change, no more putting second hand tat on eBay and, thank heavens, no more busking: for it looks like the Crown Estate is set to get a boost of £100 million from renting land out to offshore wind farm, say The Times.

And that’s not all. Queeny doesn’t have to IPO her solar venture to get some more green tech cash – the Crown Estate is also going to get some moolah from storing carbon undersea.

Privately, one of Britain’s top six utilities estimates that the Crown Estate stands to earn upwards of £100million a year from offshore wind licences alone if the Government is to achieve its stated aim of generating 33 gigawatts of power from offshore wind energy by 2020. Further revenues could be generated from tidal energy developments, such as the Severn barrage, carbon storage opportunities and subsea cabling – for which the Crown also charges a lease.

“[The seabed] is quite a valuable commodity,” said Rob Hastings, the Crown Estate’s marine director, who added that the group had signed its first offshore wind lease in 2001. A third round of bidding for new licences is under way and due to close in September. He emphasised that the bulk of the proceeds would go to the Chancellor, while other funds would be set aside to help with long-term management of the seabed.