The EU has paused a challenge at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on the UK’s stance on awarding subsidies to offshore wind projects that favour local content over imported components.
The move to pause the challenge follows consultation between the EU and the UK government.
On 1 July, UK Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan and European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis exchanged letters which confirmed that UK-EU consultations had paused the dispute.
Dombrovskis said that updated guidance and clarifications by the UK that will be issued to developers successful in the Round 4 leasing and changes to the Round 5 allocation Supply Chain Plan Questionnaire mean “that there will be no need to pursue this matter further”.
The challenge was brought on 28 March when the Commission has requested that the WTO open dispute settlement consultations into the UK’s “discriminatory” Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, which it argued applies a local content criterion on a project’s eligibility for receiving government support.
This in turn it said moves investment away from the EU, leads to losses in efficiency and raises prices for consumers making the renewable energy transition more difficult and costly.