alt Hacker NewsYes, offshore wind has CFDs too. If you are building an offshore wind farm, you are spending lots of money to construct something that isn't a low-cost operator and will likely cause significant economic issues with customer's ability to pay you...therefore, CFD. This is how the government was able to intervene to cause non-economic outcomes.
And yes, as I explain above but which you seem to have not read...there was unbelievable levels of graft involved with Hinkley. EDF is not the victim, the reason why the CFD is there is to pay suppliers to EDF which are: lawyers, consultants, planners, etc. At some point, someone may get paid for building a nuclear power plant but that is a largely accidental outcome. If you compare to what other countries with functioning political systems, Korea for example, it is multiples. The costs and prices are so ludicrous, so out of control that no-one could think they make economic sense...and, of course, they don't. It is just corruption.
Non CfD offshore wind farms probably can be economical without CfD if they had access to very cheap capital. But without CfD the risk is higher and so is the profit margin on the debt which ultimately makes it more expensive to generate the electricity which in turns increases risk of low wholesale prices.
Also, for years CfD rates were actually lower than wholesale price and are currently generating at lower strike prices than average wholesale prices. The problem now is more inflation, capital costs, and commodity prices for materials. But then a lot of other things are more expensive also.