- Offshore wind has reduced spending on imported fuel by at least £30bn to date
- Cumulative generation from offshore wind totalled more than 400 terawatt-hours (TWh) as of mid-2025
- Today, the UK has 47 operational offshore wind farms
Offshore wind has saved the UK at least £30bn in imported fuel costs in the past 25 years, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
New data from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has found that, for the first time, UK offshore wind generation overtook the amount of electricity generated from domestically-produced gas in 2024, generating around 10% more power.
Jess Ralston, head of energy, ECIU, said this will become the norm, with the gap growing as North Sea gas production continues its decline, regardless of any new drilling, and as new offshore wind farms come online.
“We’re seeing a symbolic shift in power in the North Sea as gas continues its decades-long decline while offshore wind takes top spot as the main source of British electricity for homes and businesses across the UK,” Ralston said.
“As a mature basin, it’s an inevitability that North Sea gas output will continue to fall, so unless offshore wind expands, we’ll be ever more reliant on foreign gas imports and be ever more dependent on the international gas markets that sent bills haywire.”
Ralston added that the UK has “done well” to shift to clean, homegrown electricity, but it now needs to do the same for heating. She said that unless the UK moves faster to install heat pumps, the country will “increasingly run on foreign gas”.
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The ECIU said that since late 2000, cumulative generation from offshore wind totalled more than 400 terawatt-hours (TWh) as of mid-2025, which otherwise would have likely been provided by a mixture of gas and coal.
“Given the ongoing decline of UK gas and coal production, this extra consumption would have pushed up their imports by 10% and 4% respectively, over the past 25 years,” the company said.
The savings include an estimated £1bn that could have been paid to Russia for importing liquified natural gas (LNG)and coal, based on its historical share of imports.
It also reported that 25 years into their deployment, UK offshore wind farms currently produce almost 50TWh of electricity per year (17% of UK total generation) and UK nuclear power plants reached that same level of output 27 years after the first station at Calderhall opened in 1956.
The UK’s first offshore wind farm
Since the Blythe wind farm in Northumberland opened in December 2000, it has helped offshore wind grow to become the second-largest power source in the UK after gas.
Today, the UK has 47 operational offshore wind farms to supply nearly 17% of its electricity generation, according to an analysis by energy think tank Ember.
To celebrate 25 years since its opening, Michael Shanks, energy minister, visited the site where he toured the facilities and said switching on the first turbines in 2000 marked a “hugely important moment” and put the UK at the forefront of offshore energy.
He said to the Press Association that he didn’t think anyone could have “fully appreciated the critical role that offshore wind would play in the future”.
During the visit, Shanks spoke about the local expertise and the investment needed to scale UK supply chain capacity.
“We’ve got a huge amount of skill and talent in this country we can now put to use delivering for our energy security,” he said.
“It’s also an exciting economic opportunity for communities like this that – let’s be honest – for far too long felt the pain of deindustrialisation and job losses, and I can now see a real future in these cutting-edge jobs.”
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