The UK’s largest electricity producer has warned that the government is in danger of failing to secure enough new offshore wind projects this year due to flawed internal modelling around the technology.

RWE told the Financial Times that ministers risk overestimating the costs of offshore power to bill payers leading it to potentially award fewer of the government support contracts needed to get projects off the ground.

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Offshore wind is set to play a crucial part in the UK’s efforts to cut its carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050. The government wants to have 50 gigawatts installed by 2030, up from roughly 14GW today.

The upcoming auction round for government contracts this year is vital for the industry’s prospects after the 2023 round flopped. No offshore wind developers bid after repeatedly warning the level of government support on offer was too low to offset rising costs.

In response, the government has raised the maximum price that new wind farms could be paid for each megawatt-hour they eventually produce under its subsidy scheme.

The scheme is designed so that consumers fund top-ups to developers if the wholesale price of power falls below a certain level.

However, ministers have not yet released forecasts for wholesale power prices and wind farms’ performance, which will help determine the cost to bill-payers and, therefore, the number of wind farms it can back in its budget.

RWE warned that the forecasts used in the previous auction round for these subsidy contracts did not match market assumptions, with wholesale prices too low and performance too high, and that this could be damaging if repeated.