Labour still faces risks on energy despite ‘record’ wind power auction | Nils Pratley

Government hails step towards clean power in Great Britain by 2030 - but the auction shows trade-offs are now needed

• Offshore windfarm contracts to fuel 12m homes in Great Britain after record auction

• Ed Miliband: With this record wind power auction, we've proved the rightwing doubters wrong

The government has defied gloomy price expectations for its latest auction for offshore wind capacity. The worry a few months ago was that bill payers would be forced to pay more than 100 a megawatt hour (MWh) via contracts that give developers guaranteed prices for their electricity output. In the event, winning projects landed at roughly 91/MWh.

Cue some forgivable crowing from Ed Miliband, the energy secretary. A monumental step towards clean power by 2030," he declared. Officials pointed to calculations by the energy consultants Aurora and Baringa that 94/MWh would have been a cost-neutral" outcome for consumers even though today's wholesale price, usually set by gas generation, is about 81/MWh (the analysts' reasoning is that using less gas lowers the wholesale price, offsetting the cost of the subsidies for new windfarms).