Green genocide pays, at least for the Queen. The wind farm leases are fixed and the Queen will rake in between £2-£3 billion. The Crown Estate, which manages the real estate holdings of the Queen, which include the offshore seabed along the entire coast of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, concluded new offshore leases to wind farm operators. The winners will have to pay £879 million ($1.2 billion) per year over the next decade, 25% of which will go directly as a grant to the Royal Household, after a major auction of seabed plots attracted runaway bids from energy companies, including the oil company bp. This is a substantial increase in revenues. The new deal more than doubles the £345 million the Crown Estate raked in last year.
The deal paves the way for the construction of six new offshore wind farms that would produce 3 GW of installed capacity (if the wind blows). The winners of the bids included bp and its partner, German utility EnBW, for two offshore wind farm licenses with a total capacity of 3 GW in the Irish Sea. Their licenses are worth £462 million a year to the Crown Estate, or £4 billion over the 10 years. Another license was won by Germany’s RWE for two offshore wind farms in the Dogger Bank area off the coast of North Yorkshire.
It should be noted that until 2012, the Queen was not entitled to a single pence from the Crown Estate, as had been arranged since King George III surrendered that right in return for a grant payment from the Civil List (i.e., the government). But in April 2012, under the terms of the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, the Civil List was abolished and the monarch would receive funds indexed to a percentage of the Crown Estate’s annual net revenue. Originally set at 15% but subsequently increased to 25% in 2016, it was no longer subject to debate in Parliament. Since this change, the Queen’s income has increased exponentially. In 2011-12 she received £30 million, which increased to £76 million in 2016-17; with the sales of leases for offshore seabed to wind farms, it will likely rise to £200 million.
