Greenpeace has accused the Crown Estate of putting profit above the national interest in its management of the UK seabed.
The Estate is the main source of funding for Britain’s so called “royal” Windsor family. Twelve percent of the Estate’s profits are given by the British state to the Windsors.
The Crown Estate owns the seabed around Britain and auctions the use of this to wind farm companies. According to Greenpeace it behaviour has excessively increased cost for wind farm developers while boosting both its profits and the cost of energy for consumers.
Greenpeace says that the last auction of seabed leases for wind farm development was “aggressive” resulting in excessive profits for the Estate despite its legal duty not use its monopoly exploitatively. It says that the Estate has a duty in law to “exclude the monopoly value” when setting seabed lease prices.
Greenpeace says that this results in higher energy prices and delay in developing wind powered energy resources. Development of wind powered energy in the UK has been hampered by increasing costs and supply chain hold-ups.
The organisation is threatening legal action against the Estate unless the next auction is done differently.
In a letter to the Estate, quoted in the Financial Times (FT), Greenpeace wrote that the Estates profits have been enormous and at the expense of the development of wind powered energy.
Greenpeace says that the competitive bidding introduced for the last auctions in 2021 has pushed costs up. According to the FT developers agreed at that time to pay £879mn annually to the Estate.
The organisation that campaigns to protect the natural world says that this has driven more investment to Scottish waters, owned by Crown Estate Scotland, where wind farms are often switched off because the grid is not strong enough to cope with the increased supply of electricity.
The Estate has rejected the complaint. It claimed that its legal duty is only not to seek the maximum possible return from its monopoly status.
Meanwhile the Estate has doubled its staff number and increased the pay of its chief executive from £375,000 to £1.95mn.