Transmission charging is making Scottish offshore wind farms £1 billion more expensive than their English counterpart. A report from Aurora Energy Research found that the potential changes, currently being considered by the UK government, would add the £1bn figure to a 1GW wind farm over the course of its operating life. The report added that reforming the transmission charging model could save billpayers £16bn and protect investments in offshore wind projects. Transmission charging is a levy placed on generators, having originally been designed to incentivise building asset near major cities in England. However, Scotland is looking to build over 45GW of offshore wind in the country’s waters, driven through the ScotWind and INTOG leasing rounds. Transmission charging is now effectively penalising generation in these areas. Scottish Renewables chief executive Claire Mack said: “Scotland’s abundant natural resources should make it the home of the UK’s biggest and most productive renewable energy projects but our outdated transmission charging rules, designed over 30 years ago, are unbalancing how the modern-day electricity network should be paid for which is negatively impacting the development of major sites. “These charges are both volatile and unpredictable, unfairly penalising Scottish projects by tens of millions of pounds every year.” © Supplied by Scottish RenewablesScottish Renewables chief executive Claire Mack. She added that the UK government cannot meet its 2030 clean power targets without Scottish offshore wind. Instead, she urged the UK government and Ofgem to implement a cap and floor model for transmission charging that alleviates these costs and keeps projects on track. “Delivering this meaningful reform will provide a stable, investment-friendly environment – one that protects the clean power projects vital to creating green jobs at scale and delivering a secure, sustainable energy system for the future,” Mack said. Transmission charging reforms According to the report, transmission

Aberdeen-based oil services firm Petrofac has had its restructuring plan approved by the High Court of England and Wales. The business has been pursuing a cost-cutting restructuring plan with lenders in order to bring its books back into the black and has now received the green light. In February, Petrofac announced plans to raise $355 million (£280m) in funding as part of the deal that has further reduced shareholder allocation. Existing shareholders were to be allocated 2.2% firm’s total share capital as part of the deal, a downgrade compared to the 2.5% outlined in plans announced just before Christmas. Petrofac appeared in court on 30 April and witnessed “overwhelming support of shareholders and the majority of creditor classes,” it claimed in a stock market update. The firm’s chief executive, Tareq Kawash said: “The sanctioning of the restructuring plan marks a significant milestone for our group. “Implementation of the plan will allow our talented team, clients, suppliers, shareholders and investors, to move forward with renewed confidence, bolstered by a sustainable financial platform, a robust backlog of existing contracts, and a healthy pipeline of future opportunities.” Petrofac CEO Tareq Kawash. The firm has faced financial hardship in recent years as it became entangled in a corruption scandal, as the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charged two former Petrofac executives with paying bribes in the United Arab Emirates in 2024.  Additionally, Petrofac’s books have not been as healthy as they once were, and share prices slumped following the COVD pandemic. A decision to defer publishing its audited annual results for 2024 has also resulted the halt of shares trading for the company as well, adding to its list of concerns. This forms an ongoing saga of financial uncertainty for the services giant that has been ongoing since 2023.   However, now that a restructuring

Federal regulators on Friday rejected the Midcontinent Independent System Operator’s plan to fast-track new generation interconnections, arguing the proposal lacked limits on the number of projects that could be considered. MISO filed its Expedited Resource Addition Study process, or ERAS, in March, to provide a framework for the accelerated study of generation it said could address urgent resource adequacy and reliability needs. Under the proposal, projects entering the ERAS process would have been studied serially each quarter and granted an expedited interconnection agreement within 90 days. But renewable energy stakeholders argued the proposal could add chaos “to an already complex process.” In a 2-1 vote, FERC commissioners denied the proposal. The ERAS proposal “places no limit on the number of projects that could be entered in the ERAS process, which could result in an ERAS queue with processing times for interconnection requests that are too lengthy to meet MISO’s stated resource adequacy and reliability needs,” Commissioners David Rosner and Lindsay See wrote in their decision. MISO’s proposed tariff language, for example, did not limit the number of interconnection requests or total megawatts of interconnection requests that are eligible to enter the ERAS queue, they noted. “MISO proposes up to 14 opportunities to enter the ERAS process through 2028, which could further impede MISO’s ability to process ERAS requests on an expedited basis,” according to the decision. FERC Chairman Mark Christie dissented, though he said he did not disagree with the majority’s criticism. “I am willing, however, to extend to both the states and MISO a trust that they would implement the ERAS proposal in a manner that would promote the construction of badly needed generation capacity that serves resource adequacy and reliability,” Christie wrote. “One thing we know with no need for further proof: This country, including MISO, is heading for a

The Trump administration has lifted its stop work order on the 810-MW Empire Wind 1 project offshore New York, allowing construction to resume, developer Equinor said Monday. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, D, said in a Monday release that “countless conversations with Equinor and White House officials” had led to the lifting of the stop work order. “Now, Equinor will resume the construction of this fully-permitted project that had already received the necessary federal approvals,” she said. “I also reaffirmed that New York will work with the Administration and private entities on new energy projects that meet the legal requirements under New York law.” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a Monday X post that he was “encouraged by Governor Hochul’s comments about her willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity” for natural gas.  The stop work order was issued April 16, and last week Equinor said the situation would force the company to terminate the project entirely if the situation wasn’t resolved within days, as the stoppage cost around $50 million a week. “I am grateful to Governor Hochul for her constructive collaboration with the Trump Administration, without which we would not have been able to advance this project and secure energy for 500,000 homes in New York,” Anders Opedal, president and CEO of Equinor said in a release. Opedal also thanked the president, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and several New York lawmakers “as well as labour groups and other advocates that have maintained their steadfast support for the project.” When issuing the order, Burgum said in a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that the project was “rushed through by the prior administration without sufficient analysis or consultation among the relevant agencies as relates to the potential effects from the project” and that

Dive Brief: A group of Congressional Republicans are asking their party to further tweak proposed changes to clean energy tax credits that the House Ways and Means Committee included in its reconciliation bill text. The proposed budget reconciliation bill would decrease the credits for a number of clean energy technologies after 2028 and phase them out entirely after 2031, as well as additional requirements to qualify for the credits and an early sunset for their transferability. Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican, led 13 other House members in a joint statement Wednesday seeking to extend the transferability mechanism through the phase-out period and make other changes. The GOP tax bill, as currently constructed, passed the House Budget Committee late on Sunday, after the committee failed to clear the bill on Friday. However, as Kiggans and the other lawmakers seek changes to the bill to further protect the clean energy tax provisions, others in the party are looking to speed up the phaseout. Dive Insight: While the original Inflation Reduction Act had technology-neutral clean energy production and investment credits available until 2032, the House Ways and Means Committee’s bill text would move the sunset dates up and phase them out over a four-year period. Companies would be able to receive 80% of the credit values in 2029, 60% in 2030, 40% in 2031, with the credits phasing out entirely in 2032. Another nuclear power production credit would be phased out on the same schedule. Kiggans and her colleagues said they commended the committee “for including reasonable phase-out schedules” for the credits, but said in the May 14 joint statement that a few more changes are needed “to fully realize the intent of these phase-out schedules.” “While many of these provisions reflect a commitment to American energy dominance through an all-of-the-above energy

Opposition to the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) gas-fired power station with carbon capture has ramped up as developers await a court decision next month on the project’s climate impact. Environmental consultant Andrew Boswell has called for ministers to remove carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) from the new carbon budget delivery plan. “Ed Miliband is doing some very good work with his ambitions for a clean power system by 2030,” said Boswell. “However, he fails to see that the plans for fossil fuel-based carbon capture which he inherited from the previous government are hugely damaging to the climate. The government is conveniently ignoring the true climate costs and impacts when they fall outside UK territory.” NZT would be the first gas-fired plant in the UK to capture carbon emissions. A final judgment on the appeal case against its impact on the climate is expected by mid-June, Boswell told Energy Voice. He has partnered with Zero Hour, the campaign for the Climate and Nature Bill, asking for ex-territorial carbon emissions to be “properly accounted for by the UK”, and adequate policies. They have teamed with climate groups and MP Watch to initiate a dialogue with government and mobilise local constituents to write to ministers. A DESNZ spokesperson said in a response to a request for comment: “Carbon capture, usage and storage is vital to boost our energy security, and the Climate Change Committee describes it as a ‘necessity not an option’ for reaching our climate goals. “There is no route to protecting jobs in our industrial heartlands and securing the future of heavy industry in the UK without it.” The government’s net zero strategy was previously thrown out of the High Court in 2022 as it initially failed to show how the plan could be feasibly delivered, including the necessary risk