The UK government has introduced new rules within its updated National Policy Statements (NPS) to address escalating disputes over "wind wake" effects between offshore wind developers. These high-stakes conflicts involve major companies like Orsted, RWE, and TotalEnergies, with owners of existing wind farms warning that the wake effects—where turbines from new projects reduce wind speed to existing ones—from newcomer projects threaten their financial viability and could cause massive losses.

Divergent Developer Positions

The disputes have created two distinct camps among developers. On one side, companies such as Denmark’s Orsted and Norway’s Equinor have argued that developers of new projects must provide mitigation or compensation for wake losses to protect their existing assets. Conversely, developers like Germany’s RWE and France’s TotalEnergies, who are seeking approval for new large-scale projects, have argued against being required to provide such measures, contending there is no legal right to wind.

Government Consultation and Policy Response

The government's policy update followed a public consultation that revealed a lack of industry consensus, with 15 of 90 responses specifically addressing wake effects. In response, the government acknowledged the complexity of the issue but declined to mandate specific solutions. It set the expectation that developers must demonstrate reasonable efforts to mitigate wake effects, rather than eliminate them entirely, and adopt a "good neighbour" approach by conducting wake assessments on nearby developments during the consenting process.

Key Policy Decisions

The revised NPS includes several critical decisions. References to physical mitigation measures, such as rearranging turbine layouts, were removed after consultation feedback indicated these are impractical without reducing a project’s output. The government also refused to define a specific minimum distance between offshore wind developments, citing that understanding of wake effect modeling is still evolving and impacts must be assessed case-by-case. Most crucially, the government stated that wake effects are a commercial matter to be resolved between developers, and the planning system will not adjudicate on compensation arrangements.

Implications and Industry Reactions

This stance represents a setback for developers like Orsted and Equinor, who have advocated for compulsory compensation. For instance, Equinor and SSE estimated that wake losses from RWE's Dogger Bank South project could cost their nearby farms £582 million. Despite the government's position, some developers have reached private agreements; Orsted, for example, forged a landmark deal with JERA Nex BP and EnBW to mitigate wake effects from their planned Mona and Morgan wind farms in the Irish Sea.