The government has significantly increased the budget for the sixth allocation round (AR6) of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme to £1.555 billion, an increase of over 50% from the initial budget set in March.
The budget is allocated as follows:
- £1.1 billion of the budget will be allocated to offshore wind, up £300 million from the initial budget. Offshore wind has more budget available to it in AR6 than all of the previous CfD rounds combined.
- Established technologies, such as onshore wind and solar, will receive £65 million additional support, increasing their budget to £185 million.
- Floating offshore wind and other emerging technologies will receive £165 million additional support, increasing the budget for these technologies to £270 million. This includes £15 million ringfenced support for tidal steam projects.
The round’s budget was originally set at £1.025 billion in March 2024. It has been increased after National Grid ESO provided the final valuation of all qualifying applications to the government, as set out in the allocation round regulations and published timeline. The valuation was undertaken after Ofgem concluded the appeals process for the round.
For details on the upcoming stages of AR6, please refer to scenario five in the published timeline on the CfD Allocation Round resource portal.
