Scotland’s floating offshore wind industry is facing a harsh economic reality. Rising costs, uncertain supply chains and doubts about proposed projects around Lewis should raise a much bigger question: why is Britain committing to ever more weather-dependent electricity without first demonstrating the full cost of keeping the lights on?
A warning from the Western Isles
On 16 October 2026 the Stornoway Gazette published Murray MacLeod’s report, “Offshore wind is now about picking winners.” It described increasingly difficult prospects for floating offshore wind, including projects planned west and north of Lewis.
The report relayed industry concern that ScotWind’s original expectations are being scaled back. It raised questions about the future of the Talisk and Havbredey proposals, while noting the different position of Spiorad na Mara, a fixed-bottom scheme. Those are reported concerns, not confirmation that any particular project has been cancelled.
One industry warning in the article was especially telling: the sector no longer expects gigawatt after gigawatt of floating wind to be installed by 2030 or 2035. Instead, industry leaders are talking about “picking winners.” That is a profound change from the ambition with which ScotWind was launched.
Floating wind: the cost is already alarming
We do not have to speculate about whether floating offshore wind needs a high electricity price. The Government’s January 2026 Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 7 results provide a direct comparison.
Floating offshore wind: £216.49 per megawatt-hour.
Scottish fixed-bottom offshore wind: £89.49 per megawatt-hour.
Both figures are expressed in 2024 prices. The floating wind figure is approximately 2.4 times the Scottish fixed-bottom clearing price. These are contract strike prices, not complete delivered electricity costs or household tariffs; they nevertheless reveal the economic challenge facing floating wind.
And that is before we examine the cost of bringing electricity ashore, reinforcing networks, managing constraints and retaining adequate firm generation for periods without sufficient wind.
The enormous infrastructure built around uncertain generation
The proposed 1.8 GW Western Isles transmission link illustrates why generation plans and network spending must be assessed together. Such projects can involve long submarine and underground cable routes, converter stations, construction access, land requirements and substantial capital expenditure.
If renewable projects expected to use a major new link are delayed, reduced or abandoned, will the link’s utilisation and cost assumptions still stack up? There may be benefits for existing customers and other new generation, but those benefits must be quantified rather than presumed.
The issue is wider than Scotland. Across Britain, the electricity network is being redesigned to accommodate distant renewable generation, and consumers face the cost of new cables, substations and reinforcements over many years.
Government itself has acknowledged the danger of transmission delays. Its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan warned that annual network constraint costs could rise from around £2 billion in 2022 to around £8 billion in the late 2020s in a scenario in which delays persist. That £8 billion is a conditional scenario, not a bill already incurred.
When congested lines cannot carry all the electricity produced in one area, the system operator may pay some generators to reduce output and others elsewhere to increase it. This is one reason that cheap electricity at the turbine does not necessarily mean cheap electricity at the socket.
Wind cannot promise power when we need it
Wind power can be valuable when it is available, and it can reduce fuel consumption. But installed capacity is not the same as dependable capacity. A wind farm’s advertised gigawatts cannot guarantee supply through a prolonged period of low wind, particularly during winter demand peaks.
Britain still needs dependable generation, interconnection, demand flexibility and other resources to keep supply and demand balanced. Batteries can help over shorter periods, but conventional grid batteries cannot on their own guarantee supply through every prolonged wind drought.
That makes the correct economic comparison a whole-system comparison: generation, connection, networks, backup, storage, balancing, financing and lifecycle costs — not just the headline price of building turbines.
There is a practical alternative: firm gas generation
Britain should seriously reconsider whether continuing to expand intermittent generation at any cost is preferable to maintaining and investing in modern, efficient gas-fired power stations while additional nuclear capacity is developed.
Gas generation is dispatchable. A well-maintained, fuel-supplied gas station can respond to demand without depending on wind speed or sunshine. Developing capacity at existing power station sites, where suitable connections and gas supply infrastructure already exist, may also avoid some new long-distance electricity transmission construction.
That does not mean gas is free from risk. It requires secure fuel supplies, creates carbon emissions, and remains exposed to gas price volatility. New gas capacity may still require grid works. But those real costs should be compared openly with the real costs of the alternative.
My conclusion: Britain needs reliable power, not more energy uncertainty
Britain should remove carbon taxes and carbon-price penalties that increase the cost of gas-fired electricity generation. That means reassessing Carbon Price Support and the costs imposed by the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, alongside the legal and climate-policy consequences of changing them. The impact on bills must be demonstrated rather than merely promised.
Instead of committing ever more billions to intermittent offshore wind, floating turbines, battery storage and the extensive transmission infrastructure needed to support them, we should prioritise modern, efficient gas-fired power stations capable of generating electricity whenever the country requires it.
Gas generation is dispatchable, proven and capable of delivering electricity regardless of wind speeds, daylight hours or weather conditions. By investing in generation at existing power station sites and established grid connections wherever practical, Britain could avoid some of the enormous additional transmission infrastructure required to connect increasingly remote renewable developments.
This is not about abandoning investment in our electricity system. It is about investing intelligently in generating capacity that can actually deliver electricity when consumers and industry need it.
The current strategy risks creating a costly contradiction: spending billions constructing weather-dependent generation, billions more connecting it to the grid, and then retaining or procuring dependable generation to cover periods when the wind fails.
Why continue building an increasingly complicated and expensive system around intermittent generation when Britain can invest directly in reliable electricity production?
A managed gas transition, supported by domestic gas production where economically viable, would provide a more predictable foundation for industrial competitiveness, energy security and household affordability while Britain develops additional firm generation, including nuclear power.
The priority should be affordable, dependable electricity — not meeting politically imposed carbon targets regardless of the total cost.
Before approving further major expenditure, government should publish a transparent comparison of the whole-system costs of continued renewable expansion against an alternative based on gas, nuclear generation and targeted grid investment.
That assessment must include the cost of constructing the generating assets, transmission infrastructure, financing, balancing, curtailment, replacement equipment and maintaining sufficient firm generation to protect electricity supplies in every season.
It must also explain the implications of changing carbon-pricing policy and the UK’s existing statutory emissions obligations, rather than ignoring either the economic or legal consequences.
Britain needs an energy strategy based on engineering reality, economic value and security of supply.
We should stop measuring success by the number of gigawatts announced and start measuring it by the amount of affordable, reliable electricity actually delivered to British homes and businesses.
The difficulties now emerging around Scotland’s floating offshore wind industry should be a warning to the entire country. It is time to reconsider the assumptions driving Britain’s electricity policy before consumers are committed to another generation of escalating infrastructure expenditure.
Shane Oxer — Hope to Save Our Countryside Campaigner
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