US reinstates $2B in mental health, addiction funds after abrupt cuts

Restoration of money within 24 hours of announcing sweeping cuts is emblematic of Trump administration's aggressive, seemingly haphazard approach to spending

Seyit Kurt |15.01.2026 - TRT/AA

ISTANBUL

The US has reversed a decision to terminate nearly $2 billion in federal funding for mental health and addiction services, restoring grants less than a day after more than 2,000 programs nationwide were told their funding would end immediately, according to media reports.

An administration official confirmed late Wednesday that the funds were restored but did not explain the decision. The move followed intense bipartisan pressure from lawmakers, including a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that was signed by about 100 members of the US House of Representatives, according to The New York Times.

The funding termination notices were issued Tuesday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in a form letter, saying only that the services no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities, including “innovative programs and interventions that address the rising rates of mental illness and substance abuse conditions, overdose, and suicide.”

The cuts would have taken effect immediately.

Lawmakers said the move conflicted with congressional authority over spending, as under the US Constitution, Congress is supposed to have the “power of the purse.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the episode created “uncertainty and confusion” for families and health care providers and emphasized that Congress controls federal spending.

Several organizations reported abrupt losses before the reversal, including treatment providers, emergency medical services groups, and national mental health and addiction organizations.

Some grants were tied to programs reauthorized under the SUPPORT Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in December.

Since returning to the White House last January, Trump has taken an aggressive approach to cutting government programs, laying off thousands of workers and canceling long-standing programs with little or no notice, despite money already appropriated.

In many cases – such as workers maintaining the US nuclear weapons arsenal, last March – workers have been fired followed by efforts to quickly rehire them, apparently after it became clear how important their jobs were.

Critics have blasted the approach, saying it was done with no planning or understanding, and undermined vital government functions.

After spending most of 2025 approving Trump’s funding priorities without question, some congressional Republicans have started to buck the president, restoring funds to science and health programs that Trump targeted for elimination.

Conceptual Model of State Collapse

by Denis Rancourt / January 13th, 2026

Summary

A minimalist conceptual model of the state is presented in which the fundamental basis of state existence and continuity is the flux of produced resources between producers and the needed state apparatus, while contending with powerful domestic non-state actors and foreign challenges. External conditions that reduce per capita production threaten state continuity, and the state attempts to survive by responding. Every decision either destabilizes the state and creates vulnerabilities or stabilizes the state on a road to recovery. The model provides a general framework for making and evaluating state decisions. It also provides predictions for circumstances that lead to state failure. I conclude that long-term state survival is possible, while describing the structural and dynamic challenges that must constantly be overcome.

Basic conceptual model of the state

The state is a living hierarchical structure that manages itself and controls and extracts cooperation and resources from its subjects and from its environment. It can be healthy or sick, and heal or die. The said structure includes the subjects who produce and state agents who are leaders, administrators, lieutenants, soldiers, teachers, analysts, and so on.

A given state is typically robust enough to thrive for several generations. Typical modern period life expectancy at birth of a new state is one or more centuries before being incapacitated by chronic systemic liabilities (Fischer, 1996; Goldstone, 1991; Turchin, 2003).

The state apparatus (or “state” for short, depending on the context) derives its resources from surplus productive work of subjects (“taxation”) and via pillaging operations abroad. In other words, the energy that feeds the state apparatus (i.e., the agents, equipment and infrastructure composing its structural and leadership or managerial hierarchy) is the labour and extracted physical resources provided by its subjects and provided by its targets and holdings abroad.

The state thrives as long as the influx of labour and physical resources is greater or equal to the resources expended to maintain all of its parts. That is, the resources needed to feed and maintain all of its agents (administrators, lieutenants, soldiers, teachers, analysts, and so on), and to maintain its equipment and infrastructure.

Note that I am purposefully avoiding the language of money and loans. This is because all that matters in reality is the flow of resources. Money instruments for coercion and bribes, and that represent promises to pay back, are irrelevant in themselves. The state is able to balance the fluxes of resources or it is not. It continues to thrive and grow or it degrades and fails, irrespective of the paper concepts of “debt” and “savings”. From the state view, its “savings” are temporarily unused resources whereas interest payments on “debt” owed by the state represent sinks of resources, lost for fear of lender repercussions.

We must add that powerful non-state actors coexist with the state and compete to influence or control the state to their advantage while building and maintaining systems of parallel resource extraction. These are the elite, bankers, industrialists, landlords, organized criminals, and so on, who can eventually form coalitions and overthrow the state, or capture the state and manage it while retaining its organizational structure and facade.

As long as the state survives with its rulers in place, it will constantly address non-state actor challenges, in the same way that an organism, to the best of its ability, defends against aggressive parasites. In practice, the state will make many accommodations and reciprocal agreements with powerful non-state actors, rather than expend too much energy combating these persistent forces. In this way, the state will integrate many non-state actors into its hierarchical structure, thus keeping and securing control.

Regarding continued state stability, the state apparatus (agents), the subjects and the integrated non-state actors are embedded in a changing world. One gauge of changing overall conditions is population growth or decline, which in turn depends on many factors, including environmental capacity to provide resources and violent aggression (both intra-societal oppression and war campaigns). Population growth rate is associated with fetal, neonatal and infant mortality rates, and recently in many countries population growth rate is associated with fertility control and abortion rates. Individually experienced biological stress (Selye, 1956) undoubtedly plays a major role in fertility, as do societal norms.

However, contrary to suggestions by several authors, population growth or decline by itself does not destabilize the state. This can be demonstrated as follows.

From a theoretical perspective, let us say under constant division of labour and age structure conditions, if population grows at the same rate across social classes while each subject maintains its per capita capacity to generate resources, then there is no problem. The state simply grows accordingly and the balance of flows of resources (producers to state apparatus) per capita is maintained without friction. Likewise, if population decreases (at the same rate across social classes) while other conditions do not change, then the state only needs to downsize accordingly and the balance of flows of resources per capita is again maintained. Even population-growth-driven increased geographical distance between producer subjects and consuming state agents does not create significant transportation or distribution losses because the state apparatus can be optimally dispersed near production regions.

This is just to say that the total population quantum in itself does not affect or determine state stability.

What then can irreversibly destabilize the state?

A balanced flux of resources is the first consideration irrespective of size. Here is a general scenario under select constant conditions.

State stabilization under conditions of constant trade, technology, structure and population

For simplicity, we first keep as constant:

1. the state’s ability to extract foreign resources (e.g., no wars),
2. foreign trade,
3. technology and resource-production practices,
4. the state’s hierarchical (social) structure, and
5. the population.

In this thought experiment, we then postulate that the capacity of subjects to generate resources diminishes because of external factors not controlled by the state.

Such external factors might include:

• diminishing soil fertility
• diminishing crop yields (environmental or ecological)
• diminishing individual health (biological, evolutionary or epidemiological)
• diminishing personal ability or motivation for productive work
• increasing scarcity and cost of extraction of resources from wells, rivers, mines, forests, wildlife…

We can imagine that these factors would be caused by external circumstances such as:

• unchanging ill-conceived agricultural practices
• extended drought conditions
• solar radiative output variations
• solar constant (perpendicular solar irradiation onto the atmosphere) variations
• variations in large-scale cloud dynamics (e.g., from geomagnetic changes)
• over-exploitation without exploration or regeneration
• volcanic eruptions of toxic substances (e.g., mercury) and dimming aerosols
• invasive spread of insects or other species, including parasites and disease-carrying animals
• development of allergic intolerance and nutritional deficiencies
• inadequate waste disposal and management
• external societal influences (including propaganda, inter-state exchanges, world religions) that affect the population age structure, work ethics, morale, nuclear family structure and dynamics, religious preoccupations…

  and so on.

Note that the latter category “external societal influences” is not strictly external since it is societal. It will typically be a convolution between worldwide or multi-state changes and domestic contribution and response. Todd (2024) has explained the transformational impact of such a change on the Western world, leading to a dramatic reduction in the ability of the Western world states (vassal or not) to produce both competent agents and highly trained subjects.

If we relax the condition of keeping foreign trade constant, then another mechanism that in-effect diminishes the capacity of subjects to generate resources is for a trade deficit to result from external trading partners demanding an increased exchange advantage, which is equivalent to a state currency devaluation in economic terms. This occurs via trade intimidation or when the state’s resources produced for export become less desirable to the outside.

Overall, from all such factors, the consequences to state viability are potentially serious. The postulated reduced capacity of subjects to generate resources implies that less taxes can be leveraged from the subjects. As a result, if nothing else changes, then the flux of resources to maintain the state apparatus becomes insufficient.

The state can respond in any combination of various ways, including the following.

1. The state can increase the taxation rate, meaning that it deprives the subjects of their usual personal resources in order to extract the needed quantum of resources to feed the state apparatus. With this policy, the subjects bear the cost of the externally imposed drop in resource production. This can heighten the resistance against taxation and diminish the subjects’ fitness to produce.
2. The state can decrease resource delivery (aka salary) to its agents and expect them to continue performing the same tasks. With this policy, the state’s agents bear the cost of the externally imposed drop in resource production. This can increase internal opposition to the state hierarchy, thereby reducing service quality and dedication, and it can also reduce the agents’ fitness to perform their duties. This also thereby makes the state less able both to enforce taxation and address the constant non-state actor challenges.
3. The state can increase demands (taxation) on the powerful non-state actors that coexist within the state (the said elite, bankers, industrialists, landlords, organized criminals, and so on). This has at least two effects: It produces destabilizing tensions within the systems of resource extraction controlled by the non-state actors; and it increases non-state actor opposition to the state. This in turn creates conditions for increased competition between non-state actors, likely leading to aggressive takeovers and larger and more powerful non-state actors. (E.g., smaller players with less defences may be regulated and taxed out of existence.)
4. Taking the latter point further, the state can capture the holdings of powerful non-state actors (so-called nationalization) and dismantle non-state structures. This can provide a temporary influx of resources but it does not on its own solve the fundamental problem of resource flux imbalance caused by the externally imposed reduced capacity of subjects to generate resources.
5. The state can sell off or lease its holdings (infrastructure, land, water, intellectual property, and so on) to non-state actors in exchange for resources. This, again, on its own does not solve the fundamental problem of resource flux imbalance caused by the externally imposed reduced capacity of subjects to generate resources. It only delays the inevitable. (Unless, of course, the new influx of resources is successfully used to make game-changing structural changes, such as technological developments or war, which are explored below.) Note that this sell off of holdings is distinct from so-called “privatization”, which is usually an outright giveaway ―under non-state actor pressure and manipulation―having the effect of expending state holdings and resources to contract out the depriving of subjects (point “1”) and of state agents (point “2”) of their usual resources.

The above picture, so far, under the given assumptions of constant conditions (above points “a” through “e”), means that the externally imposed reduction in capacity of subjects to generate resources, if the said reduction is too large and too prolonged, will lead to a breakdown or dissolution of the state.

As long as the external hardship conditions persist, the positive feedback reactions contained in the presented state responses (above points “1” through “5”) are such that the state system will experience a non-linear (accelerating) spiralling down into destruction, and only the accelerating rate of this downfall can be mitigated by state reactions.

State stabilization with unconstrained trade, technology, structure and population

Longer state lifetimes can be achieved, for example, in the following creative and adaptive ways, allowed by relaxing the above-postulated constant-condition constraints (points “a” through “e”).

One oft illustrated approach in history is for the state to raise an army and practice war, slavery and imperialism. If successful, this creates a larger state, an empire. However, the law of balancing fluxes of resources from subjects to the state apparatus (which now includes a maintained occupying army) remains the same, and such an empire can spiral down towards oblivion under a strong and growing pressure of reduced capacity of subjects to generate resources. An empire will generally have a longer lifetime than a small state, but the same law of balanced resource flux applies.

In this version of our hypothetical world which allows inter-state competition, wars and empire building, each state now has a defence burden as part of its apparatus, not only police and soldiers for domestic order.

In addition, having relaxed condition “d” (above) of a constant or unchanging social structure, the state’s administrative apparatus of service agents itself will be driven to grow larger in size and more demanding of resources through careerism and social-class greed, which must also be countered by the state.

Another approach to solving the deficient resource flux problem is for states to practice pillaging, which is the iconic resource supplementation strategy of the Vikings. Similarly, a large state can use protection-racket coercion, a popular method of the USA empire practised against its so-called allies through arms sales, military bases, corporate not-so-free trade and control of the world currency (Rancourt, 2019).

The now relaxed hypothetical rules (of our thought experiment) also allow improving technology and resource-production practices (point “c” above). Our hypothetical state therefore now has many new inventive ways to solve or alleviate its deficient resource flux problem (of externally imposed diminished capacity of subjects to generate resources).

The state, its subjects, and its agents can, under the newly considered relaxed constraints, respond in any combination, for example, of the following:

1. develop improved and sustainable agricultural practices giving higher yields in both food quantity and quality (such as optimized livestock and crop rotations, improved water management methods, imported crop varieties, improved pest management methods, improved pollination strategies, and so on)
2. increase, adjust or redistribute resource allowances to subjects in order to make them more productive (this is partly achieved through taxation policy and is akin to reducing poverty and unemployment, while improving living conditions and increasing individual fitness)
3. develop improved state-run education and religious practices that increase national (state) identity and allegiance, while responding to worldwide changes in values
4. develop improved intelligence systems for rooting out and discouraging subversion and corruption (thus keeping non-state actor ambitions and out-of-state infiltration more efficiently in check)
5. adopt or adapt social and work-environment structures that strengthen state subject and state agent dedication and efficiency (such as highly stratified hierarchies with merit-based assignations) (Note that the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) in China, for example, had a robust merit-based hierarchy for its elite educated state public service agents, see Turchin, 2023.)
6. develop improved and novel state management practices to continuously optimize the mosaic of production specialization and agent duty specialization, adjusting compartment populations as needed, in ways that do not create destabilizing tensions
7. develop improved education or mentorship structures and incentives to transmit and develop technical skills and practices
8. develop improved energy use technology in both mechanization and transportation
9. develop improved and sustainable mining and energy extraction and refinement technologies
10. develop improved land use practices, including specialization based on regional climate and ecological conditions
11. develop improved waste management strategies and sanitation practices

and so on.

In all of this, the state must have breadth and depth in its own increasing and institutionalized knowledge of state management principles and response strategies and tactics. This knowledge base must be state-owned and independent. It should not rely on or be corrupted by non-state actors or foreign influence.

In this way, creative and coordinated state responses to external factors that would diminish the capacity of subjects to generate resources can ensure that the law of balanced resource flux (from subjects to the state apparatus) is dynamically maintained. Surpluses can be used to reduce poverty and increase employment in socially rewarding work, for both subjects and agents, thus strengthening the state and reducing internal frustration against the state.

As long as the state project is alive in the minds and hearts of subjects and agents, then such creative state responses to external factors that would diminish the capacity of subjects to generate resources can continue without state collapse except for the most extreme external shocks.

Regarding keeping the state project alive in minds and hearts, at the psychological level the individual is expected to largely take their identity from their place in the state-structured and maintained social hierarchy. The state is aided by a large biological impetus to belong, as is the case with all social animals, such that early and continued state education and institutions (including state religions) that promote state ideology do well in this regard. With vassal jurisdictions (states in facade only) the empire may provide globalized generic ideologies (Rancourt, 2019). Individuals (especially males) also have a natural impetus to rebel and to seek more power if promotion within the established hierarchy is not forthcoming or sufficient, especially among the elite social classes (Turchin, 2023). This biological impetus drives the growth and multiplication of non-state actors, if it is not accommodated by the state.

In all of this, population need not increase or decrease, although an increased and integrated population in-effect increases the size and power of the state in the world. Likewise, loss of population can so diminish the state’s effective size as to make it more vulnerable to external pressures and threats. Furthermore, an artificial or accelerated increase in state population, if not integrated, can cause an impetus for war, both civil and predatory.

Presently, it seems superficially that large societies that have long historic traditions of intended merit-based state management hierarchical structures (Russia, China) and experience with long-lived recent empires (Tsarist Russia, 1547-1917; Qing Dynasty, 1644-1912) are able to apply the above responses well, whereas states that have more colonizing traditions (Western world) tend to stick with the colonizing model, using both military projection and financial predation.

Can the state survive?

Finally, regarding the cycles of state breakdown that are observed historically from the late-Middle Ages through the early modern period (Fischer, 1996; Goldstone, 1991), it appears that these collapses were due to state failures to cope, in the presence of large intra-state and inter-state pressures, in which competing non-state actors played major roles. There are two main striking features of these cycles, in the particular (mostly European and northern Asian) states studied by Fischer (1996) and Goldstone (1991).

First, state stability periods did not last much more than approximately 100 years (3 generations), up to approximately 200 years; again, for these particular states studied by Fischer (1996) and Goldstone (1991). It seems one century or so was long enough for threatening non-state forces to generate and cause severing changes, while exploiting external conditions such as trade conflicts and war. Elite greed and ambition was certainly a driver, and relative inflation of cost of basic commodities was always a factor (Fischer, 1996; Goldstone, 1991; Turchin, 2023).

These events suggest that the state, like the body of a living animal, has a finite and species-specific lifetime. Once enough damage is accumulated in the process of living, then a non-linear final failure (death) precipitously occurs. Has modern technology and civilizational management experience made a new species of state having a super immune system? It is doubtful. However, as argued above, unlike with the body of a living animal, state longevity is not limited by biological laws, only by unchecked internal rot, conquest or external catastrophic shock.

From another perspective, the state is a social dominance hierarchy and all social dominance hierarchies are subject to a dynamical law of spontaneous creep away from merit-based stratification towards competing mega-players and a totalitarian end point (Hickey and Davidsen, 2019). The loss of merit-based social stratification is the death of a state. The theoretically predicted death by dominance dynamics is postponed by optimal choices of the rules of social-status competition (Hickey and Davidsen, 2019), which the state can control.

Overall, statecraft is the most challenging human endeavour. Long-lived states and empires are possible, where longevity depends more on autonomous internal management than on external factors. Every legislative, legal and policy decision of the state either stabilizes or destabilizes, in the changing environment of external factors.

Second, state stability (and instability) periods were essentially synchronous across continental-scale geographic space. This led Goldstone (1991) to conclude that there must be an overarching common external factor driving all state instabilities: Population growth pressure on natural resources. I disagree. The approximate said synchrony of state stability and state meltdown can be induced by several strong coupling forces that include:

• • • • inter-state trade
      • inter-state technology transfer (including agricultural practices)
      • war and territorial disputes
      • climatic change (e.g., Little Ice Age conditions, 1300-1850)
      • large volcanic eruptions

These coupling forces draw the states into a single dominance hierarchy which will then follow its own whole-system dynamics. Simply put, the states have synchronized cycles because they are integrated parts of one world.

This does not mean that an individual state is not self-determined. Only that its downfall is coupled to the downfalls of other states. Strong states follow their own paths. Failing states fail together.

Acknowledgement. I thank my colleague Dr. Joseph Hickey for a critical review of the paper and several suggestions regarding content and clarity.

References

Fischer (1996): David Hackett Fischer, The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History Oxford University Press, p. 536, ISBN 0-19-512121-X (Pbk.)

Goldstone (1991): Goldstone, Jack A., Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, University of California Press, p. 608, ISBN 0-520-08267-2

Hickey and Davidsen (2019): Hickey J, Davidsen J, “Self-organization and time-stability of social hierarchies.” PLoS ONE 2019, 14(1): e0211403. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211403

Rancourt (2019): Rancourt, Denis G., Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics Drive Successive Eras of Predatory Globalization and Social Engineering – Historical Emergence of Climate Change, Gender Equity, and Anti-Racism as State Doctrines /// (April 02, 2019) /// Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5403798 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5403798

Selye (1956): Hans Selye, The Stress of Life, McGraw-Hill, p. 515, ISBN 0-07-056212-1

Todd (2024): Emmanuel Todd, La Défaite de l’Occident, Gallimard Publ., p. 384, ISBN 978-2073041135

Turchin (2003): Peter Turchin, Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall, Princeton University Press, p. 245, ISBN 978-0-691-18077-9

Turchin (2023): Peter Turchin, End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, Penguin Press, NY, p. 352, ISBN 9780593490501 (hardcover)

Denis G. Rancourt was a former tenured full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is a researcher for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association. He has published more than 100 articles in leading scientific journals, on physics and environmental science. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. Denis can be reached at denis.rancourt@gmail.com. Read other articles by Denis, or visit Denis's website.

Marxists.orgwww.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1896/state/index.htm

The State: Its Historic Role - Marxists Internet Archive

Kropotkin explains in the French edition of his Memoirs “The research that I carried out in the course of familiarizing myself with the institutions of the ...

 

JPMorgan warns of ‘more volatility’ facing energy transition

Bloomberg News | January 13, 2026 | 

Stock image.

The outlook for the global energy transition is likely to be more volatile than investors may have expected, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“We’ve had a bit of a reset,” James Janoskey, the London-based global co-head of JPMorgan’s natural resources group, said in an interview. The clean-energy transition is “still going to happen, but it will be more elongated than we thought previously, with more volatility and with some sub-sectors going faster than others.”

He says JPMorgan isn’t planning to back away from financing companies tied to the energy transition, noting that the bank is convening a summit in March intended to help clean-tech firms raise equity growth capital. At the same time, the geopolitical, business and economic context means that fossil fuels continue to attract capital, in large part due to the rise of artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to power it.

There’s still growth in the amount of capital being allocated to the low-carbon economy, said Janoskey, whose role within JPMorgan’s investment banking unit covers global energy, power, renewables and mining. “But the predicted trend line that showed traditional fossil fuels going down and then leveling off — and low carbon sources going up and to the right — has not materialized.”

It’s clear that “oil and gas will remain a meaningful part of the energy mix for the foreseeable future,” he said. “So we are not really talking about a transition or replacement at this point, it’s more of an addition to meet growing demand.”

The outlook for a transition away from high-carbon technologies and toward cleaner, greener alternatives has been complicated by a cocktail of political backlash in the US, competitiveness concerns in Europe and the rise of AI globally. Clean energy is drawing record investment, green stocks are outperforming, and renewables are generally the cheapest form of power. At the same time, the Trump administration has pitted itself against sectors such as wind and solar, as it works to turbocharge the production of oil, gas and even coal.

There’s still transition dealmaking to be done, albeit with a somewhat different focus than might once have been expected, Janoskey said. “Today the conversation is not just about energy transition, but also energy security, energy dominance and affordability,” he said.

Private equity deals in mining set to rise on energy transition needs, says S&P Global

JPMorgan is looking at financing opportunities in the nuclear power industry, including for small modular reactors, Janoskey said. The bank is also interested in doing deals to help finance power grid modernization and battery storage, he said.

No bank is bigger than JPMorgan when it comes to financing energy deals overall, according to BloombergNEF. For every dollar JPMorgan provided to the fossil-fuel industry — either via direct loans or debt and equity underwriting — it allocated 69 cents to green projects, according to a September BNEF report that looks at transactions through the end of 2024.

BNEF says “fragmentation” has beset global efforts to deliver a low carbon future. Still, while “climate mitigation is no longer the shared priority it once was” and despite “some awkward mood music,” the energy transition “keeps on trucking,” it concluded in a Jan. 6 report.

For the world to have a chance of limiting global warming to the critical threshold of 1.5C, capital allocations to green projects need to be four times the amount those spent on fossil fuels, BNEF has calculated.

Janoskey says JPMorgan continues “to look to actively finance the lower carbon part of that business and try to scale that up.” But the bank has “put in less capital to that area than we may have hoped as some clients pulled back or delayed projects in recent times,” he said.

(By Alastair Marsh)

 

UK Awards Europe’s Largest Offshore Wind Energy Allocation for 8.4 GW

The UK awarded the largest allocation round with 8.4 GW of offshore wind energy (SSE)

Published Jan 14, 2026 5:23 PM by The Maritime Executive

The UK government is hailing what it calls a “monumental step” in energy independence as it awarded 8.4 GW in a total of 12 offshore wind energy projects. The results are the biggest single procurement of offshore wind energy in British and European history, and are seen as a significant validation for the industry.

The government is highlighting the turnaround it was able to achieve with the seventh round of Contracts for Difference Allocation. Round 5 closed in September 2023 with no offshore wind energy projects secured. The government enhanced the subsidies and pricing for Round 6, which awarded nearly 5 GW off fixed bottom offshore wind, although some was a reworking of prior awards, and 400 MW of floating offshore wind. Today’s record awarding of 8.48 GW, they said, would power over 12 million homes and spur more than £22 billion in private investment.

The UK’s goal is for at least 43 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 as part of its overall renewable energy strategy. The country already has 16.6 GW installed and a further 11.7 GW under construction. Many people feared after the last two rounds that the UK would not be able to meet its goals. Today’s results are closing a major portion of the gap, with analysts saying the UK needs another 7 GW in the next round set late this year to ensure it meets its goal. The UK is second only to China in the amount of offshore wind energy developed.

“With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. “This is a historic win for those who want Britain to stand on our own two feet, controlling our own energy rather than depending on markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.”

The government is arguing that offshore wind power makes economic sense, highlighting that its development will cost 40 percent less than the cost of building and operating a new gas power plant. They also cited independent research that says renewables can drive down the price of electricity and have already done so by up to a quarter.

The government, however, is providing extensive financial support to the offshore wind energy sector. They noted that the original budget for fixed bottom projects was £900 million, but based on the strength of the round has been increased to £1.79 billion. The strike price for electricity from the fixed bottom projects ranges from approximately £89 to £91, while the strike price for floating offshore wind is £216.46 per MWh. Critics highlight that it was increased from £82 per MWh in 2024. The contract prices are also indexed to CPI inflation.

The projects selected span the North Sea in both England and Scotland, as well as the Irish Sea for Wales. It is the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade and the first new Scottish project since 2022.

The biggest recipients include SSE, which won a 20-year contract for Berwick Bank Phase B. It was the only fixed-bottom project selected in Scotland, and it is a big one. Phase B would be 1.28 GW. The company plans to reach a final investment decision by 2027 and also expects to place Phases A and C in Round 8 later this year. If the full project is developed, it would become the largest in the world with a total capacity of 4.1 GW and 307 turbines.

WE also won major awards both for its Norfolk Vanguard project and two Dogger Bank South projects, all in the North Sea, as well as Awel y Mor in the Irish Sea. 

Norfolk Vanguard would be developed in two phases and have a total capacity of 3.1 GW. RWE announced that it has agreed to sell 50 percent of the project to the well-known investment firm KKR. They are targeting the summer of 2026 for the investment decision. The first phase of the project is expected in 2029, and the second in 2030.

Dogger Bank is also two phases, which combined would add another 3 GW in 2031 and 2032. In December 2023, RWE entered into a partnership with the UAE-based Masdar as an investor for these projects.

The trade group RenewableUK reported that more than 20 GW of offshore wind had been eligible for this round of the allocations. The strength of this round comes as many other countries in Europe have struggled to overcome the financial and supply chain challenges to spur interest in their new rounds. The UK government hopes to build on the strength of this round for the next auction late this year.

RWE Wins 6.9 GW of UK Offshore Wind CfDs and Brings in KKR as Partner

By Charles Kennedy - Jan 14, 2026

Germany’s RWE has emerged as one of the biggest winners in the UK’s latest offshore wind auction, securing Contracts for Difference (CfDs) for 6.9 gigawatts of capacity in Allocation Round 7 while simultaneously locking in a long-term partnership with private equity firm KKR.

Under the results announced by the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, RWE won 20-year inflation-linked CfDs at a strike price of £91.20 per megawatt hour (in 2024 prices) for five projects across the North Sea and Irish Sea. The awards cover the Norfolk Vanguard East and West projects, two Dogger Bank South projects, and the Awel y Môr development off the coast of north Wales.

Alongside the auction success, RWE confirmed that KKR will acquire a 50% equity stake in both Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Vanguard West. The two companies will jointly develop, construct and operate the projects, marking a significant deepening of financial partnerships in the UK offshore wind sector. The transaction is expected to close in summer 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.

The CfDs provide long-term revenue certainty, a critical factor for financing large-scale offshore wind projects amid rising costs and tighter capital markets. The Norfolk Vanguard East and West projects together account for 3.1 GW of capacity and are located 50 to 80 kilometers off the Norfolk coast. Once operational, they are expected to supply electricity to roughly three million UK homes.

RWE has already launched the process to raise non-recourse project finance debt for the Norfolk Vanguard projects. Final investment decisions, along with project financing and completion of the KKR partnership, are targeted for summer 2026. Commissioning is expected in 2029 for Norfolk Vanguard West and 2030 for Norfolk Vanguard East.

The agreement with KKR highlights a broader trend in offshore wind: developers increasingly turning to large institutional investors to share capital burdens and manage balance sheet exposure as project sizes continue to scale.

Beyond Norfolk Vanguard, RWE secured CfDs for its Dogger Bank South East and West projects, which together represent 3 GW of capacity in the North Sea, more than 100 kilometers off England’s northeast coast. The projects are jointly owned by RWE (51%) and Abu Dhabi-based Masdar (49%), with RWE leading development and operations. Commissioning is expected in the early 2030s.

RWE also won support for the 0.8 GW Awel y Môr offshore wind project, an extension of the existing Gwynt y Môr wind farm in the Irish Sea. Awel y Môr is jointly owned by RWE, Stadtwerke München and Siemens, and is expected to come online in 2031.

The AR7 results come as the UK seeks to accelerate offshore wind deployment to meet its decarbonization and energy security goals. After recent auction rounds saw concerns over project viability due to inflation and supply chain pressures, the £91.20/MWh strike price reflects the government’s effort to rebalance developer economics while maintaining competitive procurement.

For RWE, the outcome strengthens its position as one of Europe’s leading offshore wind developers and underscores the growing importance of partnerships with global capital providers as project pipelines expand.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

‘Labour’s historic delivery of offshore wind means energy will be cheaper, cleaner and better for UK consumers and communities’

Michael Shanks  14th January, 2026

Credit: Martin Brazill/Shutterstock.com

Today’s historic results from the latest offshore wind auction shows the difference a Labour government can make to our communities.

After months of our opponents on the right casting doubt on the benefits of clean power, the results announced today, alongside new analysis on costings are emphatic: we have secured a record amount of clean power at a price that is significantly lower than that of building and operating new gas fired power plants.

The results announced today mean offshore wind in every corner of the country, from Dogger Bank off the Yorkshire coast, to Awel y Mor in Wales, to Berwick Bank in the North Sea.

Labour is delivering our historic promise made at the last election, to deliver energy security through clean power, and bring down bills for good.

READ MORE: ’25 years of offshore wind shows what can be achieved by energy and climate ambition’

We made that promise in the shadow of the cost of living crisis that was, and still is, affecting so many families across our country today.

As Russia invaded Ukraine, the failure by successive Tory governments to invest in our energy system was laid bare.

Households from the Highlands to Cornwall were left to pick up the tab through eye-wateringly high energy bills, and still today face bills that are significantly higher than before the crisis.

At the general election we vowed to never let this happen again, and today we take a significant step forwards in meeting that commitment.

Not only have we secured enough projects to power the equivalent of over 12 million homes, but we are also getting ahead in floating offshore wind, an emerging technology in which we can be a leader here in the UK.

With two successful floating wind projects in the North Sea and Celtic Sea, we are delivering where previous Tory governments failed.

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I am particularly pleased to see the Pentland project in Scotland secure a contract, building on the backing it has been given by Great British Energy and the National Wealth Fund.

Taken together, the results we are announcing today will support 6,000 highly skilled jobs in every corner of the country, backed by £22bn in private investment going into our communities.

This is on the back of more than £60bn of private investment that we have secured since coming to office.

While our opponents peddle false arguments around cost, today we are also publishing definitive evidence that clean power is the cheaper option when compared to new gas fired power stations.

This analysis shows that the projects secured today are as much as 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas capacity in the energy system.

Not only that, but the overall results for all technologies in AR7 will contribute to lower bills for households compared to today.

We were elected with a clear mission to end the cost of living crisis facing families, secure our energy system and create the jobs our communities so urgently need.

Today we take a significant step forwards in delivering on that promise to the British people.

Michael Shanks

Michael Shanks is the MP for Rutherglen and Minister for Energy.

View all articles by Michael Shanks

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UK Awards Record Offshore Wind Capacity in Latest Auction

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Jan 14, 2026

The UK on Wednesday awarded a record-breaking 8.4 gigawatts (GW) capacity of offshore wind in its latest auction round, which puts Britain “firmly on track to achieve its clean power mission by 2030,” the government said.   

The Contracts for Difference AR7 auction secured offshore wind capacity capable of generating enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 12 million UK homes.  

“The results deliver the biggest single procurement of offshore wind energy in British and European history - confounding the global challenges facing the industry - a major vote of confidence in the UK’s new era of energy sovereignty and abundance,” the UK government said in a statement. 

Projects in all parts of the UK, including Scotland and the first Welsh project to win a contract in more than a decade, won in the offshore wind tender. 

The government also noted that offshore wind is cheaper to build and operate than new gas-fired power generation. In new figures published on Wednesday using the LCOE industry metric, the cost of building and operating a new gas fired power station is £147, or $198, per megawatt hour (MWh). By contrast, the results for fixed offshore wind in today’s auction were £90.91, or $122, per MWh on average. That’s 40% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas-fired generation, the UK government said. 

With the latest record-breaking auction, Britain is “taking back control of its energy, and lowering bills for good,” the cabinet noted. 

The UK aims to have at least 43 GW of offshore wind by 2030 to meet its clean power target. To compare, current offshore wind capacity is 16.6 GW while another 11.7 GW is under construction. 

Despite the offshore wind auctions returning back on track, the UK will find it very challenging to connect all these projects to the grid and have it running 95% on clean energy, including renewables and nuclear, analysts say.    

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Vattenfall Finalizes Investment for Germany’s Largest Offshore Wind Project

Vattenfall finalized the investment decision after receiving permits for Germany's Nordlicht project (Vattenfall)

Published Jan 13, 2026 8:48 PM by The Maritime Executive

Offshore wind energy developer Vattenfall confirmed that it is moving forward with the Nordlicht offshore wind cluster. With construction due to start later this year, the two-phase project will become the largest wind project for Germany and a key contributor as the country struggles to accelerate development in the offshore wind energy sector.

The permit issued by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has become irrevocable, making the final step to move forward with the project. Vattenfall had announced in March 2025 that it had made the investment decision for the project, conditional on the receipt of the necessary permits. The company agreed to repurchase the shares in the Nordlicht cluster that BASF acquired in 2024. At the same time, BASF secured access to a long-term supply of renewable electricity, as part of the agreement. The companies said the agreement would secure renewable power for BASF’s chemical production in Europe at a time when such additional supply will be needed.

The Nordlicht wind cluster will be located just over 50 miles north of Borkum in the German region of the North Sea. The company reports monopile installation for Nordlicht I is expected to begin in the third quarter of this year, and when completed, the 980 MW project will be the largest capacity offshore wind farm in Germany. The second phase will add a further 630 MW. Nordlicht II should begin construction in 2027, and both wind farms are expected to be operational in 2028, adding over 1.6 GW to Germany’s energy supply. Electricity production is expected to total around 6 TWh annually.

Catrin Jung, Senior Vice President, Head of Business Area Wind for Vattenfall, called this a “defining moment” for the project. “This project is about more than building offshore wind capacity – it’s about strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. By producing clean electricity locally, we help create a more resilient energy system,” said Jung.

The decision to move forward on the project comes as Germany, like other Northern European countries, has experienced reduced interest in future projects due to the challenges and economic pressures on the industry. 

Despite having a target to reach 30 GW by 2030, Germany has been stuck at around 1,600 installed wind turbines since late 2024. It currently has a capacity of approximately 9.2 GW installed. While it has grown from just over 7 GW in 2021, future projects have been delayed. In August 2025, Germany received no bids in its latest allocation round, prompting the government to say it would have to adjust the strategy. It scaled back its plan for offshore-wind auctions in 2026 to between 2.5 and 5 GW, from an original plan for 6 GW. The next allocation was expected to proceed in February, with further rounds planned for mid-year.

Despite similar economic challenges in the Netherlands, Vattenfall highlights that it is moving forward with another large-scale project. Together with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, the company has received an irrevocable permit for the Zeevonk wind farm, which will have an installed capacity of 2 GW. It is also designed to produce green hydrogen in a key development for the Dutch industry.
 The project will be built in phases and is now delayed to a target completion of 2032.