UK Renewables Deployment Supply Chain Readiness Study (2026 update)

Executive Summary

The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan sets out an ambitious and important objective to meet all electricity demand in Great Britain by 2030, with at least 95% of generation coming from low‑carbon sources. Strong and resilient supply chains will be central to delivering this transition and will depend on continued close coordination between industry and government. There has been a reduction in supply chain risks since 2024, with further action needed to sustain momentum and deliver at scale.

This conclusion is based on an updated supply chain analysis of three renewable energy sectors, including offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar photovoltaics (PV). The previous study included the transmission and distribution network; however, this is excluded from the current study. This study is based on interviews with 16 renewable energy developers and trade associations, as well as updated supply and demand modelling. The report builds on the 85 interviews with renewables developers, network operators, suppliers, and trade associations from the original renewable energy supply chain readiness study, first published in 2024.1 Below is an overview of the key components across the three renewable energy technologies facing constraints in 2026.

Supply chain issues are most severe for the offshore wind sector

According to both interview participants and supply and demand modelling, the components facing the greatest capacity constraints are:

• Turbines.

• Floating foundations.

• High-voltage direct current (HVDC) cables and converter stations.

• Cable installation vessels and ports.

Compared to 2024, developers are increasingly concerned about turbine supply, though there remains limited data on manufacturing capacity to support this concern. It is also noteworthy that many turbine suppliers continue to face significant financial limitations across their offshore and onshore portfolios. This has the greatest impact on floating projects with which turbine Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are reluctant to engage due to their smaller size and greater commercial and technical uncertainty.

For onshore wind and grid-scale solar PV, supply chain constraints are less severe and largely unchanged since 2024, although planning and grid constraints were reported to have eased a little

The ongoing financial pressure on turbine manufacturers, as reported by interview participants, also raises concerns that they might reduce the number of turbine models offered in their onshore product portfolios, including the Class I-A models in greatest demand in the UK market. Although securing planning consent and grid connections have reportedly become more prominent constraints, onshore wind and solar PV continue to face shortages of transformers and switchgear due to demand from the grid and industrial and commercial buyers.

All renewable energy sectors face skills-related constraints

According to developers, shortages remain particularly acute for design and commissioning engineers, project managers, and installation technicians. There is intense national and international competition for new and experienced hires with these skill sets.

National and international competition for components and installation services contributes to many supply chain constraints, although uncertainty in the offshore wind market has seen a slight easing of demand

This competition reportedly comes from other renewables sectors, as well as oil and gas, networks, and interconnectors, with suppliers likely to favour customers and markets offering the most certainty, the lowest cost to serve, and the best prices. Offshore wind developers have highlighted an easing of short- to medium-term demand due to a combination of the withdrawal of two major UK projects, delays to Dutch auctions, and the lack of bids in Danish and German auctions. In addition, further demand reduction has arisen from economic and political uncertainty affecting projects in the USA, which would otherwise have been competing for components from many European suppliers in the short term. This has meant that most of the new US nacelle, blade, tower, monopile, and cable factories announced as part of the Inflation Reduction Act have been cancelled or failed to proceed to construction, potentially limiting supply in the mid- to long-term. This could, in turn, increase US reliance on European component imports, with knock-on effects for component availability within Europe. 

Except for commoditised products such as onshore cable, conductors and solar modules, suppliers appear to remain unwilling to invest speculatively in new manufacturing capacity without a concrete pipeline of orders and sufficient certainty about the size of components to be manufactured and installed. This is most acute for offshore wind, where the projects are the largest and most heavily dependent on securing a financially viable Contracts for Difference (CfD) offer as the main route to market. Despite this, unlike in the USA, the majority of new and expanded factories announced in the UK and Europe since the last report have now entered or completed construction. Since 2024, this includes six new and eight expanded factories across cables (5 – 2 in UK), monopiles (4 – 1 in UK), nacelles (2), blades (1) and towers (3), with further blade and cable factories announced.

In addition, a major Chinese turbine OEM, Mingyang Wind Power, has announced potential factories across Europe, but these are subject to stringent legal and regulatory requirements and national security assessments.

Alleviating UK renewables supply chain constraints since the original 2024 study

Since the original study in 2024, the UK Government has announced several key industry initiatives, policy updates, and funding programmes:

• Increases to the Administrative Strike Prices for Contract for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round (AR) 7 for fixed-bottom offshore to £113/MWh, for floating offshore to £271/MWh, for onshore wind to £92/MWh, and for Solar PV to £75/MWh (in 2024 prices), with a total budget of £1.79bn, to reflect increases in input costs and the cost of capital. The capacity weighted average difference between AR7 Clearing and Administrative Strike Prices was 18%.

• The publication of the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and the UK Government’s mission to “Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower”, outlining the vision to boost innovation, skills, and infrastructure by doubling investment levels into clean energy industries to over £30bn per year by 2035.

• The introduction of the Clean Industry Bonus to encourage sustainable offshore wind supply chain investment (and consultation on its potential introduction for onshore wind and to expand the policy to include skills development and workforce protection).

• £1 billion of offshore wind supply chain investment support, consisting of £300m grant funding from Great British Energy, £400m investment from The Crown Estate and £300m industry investment from the Industrial Growth Plan, and a further £700m in clean supply chain investment from Great British Energy.

• The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan and connections reform to accelerate delivery.

• The lifting of the de facto ban on onshore wind in England.

• The publication of the Clean Energy Jobs Plan, which aims to provide greater certainty for employers to invest in skills, training for a pipeline of skilled workers, routes for existing workers to transition into clean energy and high-quality jobs across all nations and regions.

• The establishment of the Onshore Wind Council (formerly Onshore Wind Taskforce) and the Solar Council to support the acceleration of onshore wind and solar PV delivery through industry collaboration and Government-backed initiatives.

• Beyond this, there are further opportunities for standardisation and collaboration across developers, network operators, and suppliers.

• Additional measures include an increase in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) threshold for energy projects from 50 MW to 100 MW, effective from January 2026, reducing planning complexity for medium-scale developments.

• Examples of devolved industry support mechanisms include the Welsh Government’s £10m renewable energy capital grant programme (2025) and a Scotland-wide offshore wind supply chain support programme, Fit For Offshore Renewables (F4OR), re-launched in 2026 (F4OR was first established in 2019).

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