The U.K.’s royal family is making millions from this surprising new income stream

Britain’s royal family has seen a surge in profits from its property portfolio, thanks in part to offshore wind farms—and at least some of that money is expected to benefit the broader public.

The Crown Estate, the company that manages the land and properties of the British monarch, recently released its annual financial report, which revealed that the profits of the royal family’s holdings totaled 1.1 billion pounds (about $1.4 billion) for the year ending March 31, 2024, up from 442.6 million pounds the year prior.

That bump, the report says, is mainly credited to option fees for six newly planned offshore wind projects. (The first batch of those projects, per the report, are expected to begin construction within the next few years). The royal family owns the majority of Britain’s seabed, and so leases some of those sites for wind farms to build on. Though the first leasing for offshore wind was in 2001, as a test, the Crown didn’t hold further auctions for seabed plots until 2021. (The auctions themselves are the biggest profit driver, but once a wind farm comes online and starts generating electricity, the Crown Estate receives “operational rent” of 2% of the project’s revenue each year.)

The surge in offshore wind

Though offshore wind power is still a smaller segment of the global energy mix than onshore wind, it’s expected to grow rapidly in the near future. The wind out at sea is stronger and more consistent, which means offshore wind farms can generate power in a more reliable way.

China leads the world in both land and offshore wind power, but the United Kingdom is emerging as a top producer of the renewable energy. In 2022, the U.K. installed nearly 3 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity—more than the rest of the world combined—according to the International Energy Agency. (The U.S., for its part, has seen some recent struggles as offshore wind projects were canceled in 2023.)

The royal family has been investing in renewables for years. Its first commercial offshore wind farm, North Hoyle, began operating in 2003. Now the Crown Estate has 36 operating wind farms in waters around Great Britain (excluding Scotland) with a total capacity of 11.8 gigawatts—enough to power around 11 million homes. Another 80.3 gigawatts of offshore wind power are in the pipeline.

“As custodians of the seabed and a significant portfolio of land, we are uniquely placed to support the national journey to net zero through offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, and nature-based solutions,” the Crown Estate’s report reads. The U.K. government has a goal to reach net zero by 2050.

Royal family profits—and wind plans

The Crown Estate’s profits go to the Treasury, and also determine the royal family’s “sovereign grant,” or the money the family gets from the government to cover its household costs and official travel expenses. Last year, the British government said it would cut the share of funds going to the royal family from the Crown Estate because King Charles said he wanted wind farm profits to go to the “wider public good.”

In 2023, the royal family received 25% of the Crown Estate’s net profits; that’s been reduced to 12% for this year and going forward. (The sovereign grant began in 2012 and was initially set at 15%; it goes to the king and other working members of the royal family). Still, because the Crown Estate saw a profit surge, the royal family is getting more money, too—132 million pounds for the 2025-2026 year, up from 86.3 million pounds in the previous fiscal year.

The recent profit boost largely came from the estate’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4, which includes six new projects—three off the North Wales, Cumbria, and Lancashire coast, and three in the North Sea—that could begin generating electricity by the end of the decade. The revenue attributed to that round is “short term in nature,” Dan Labbad, chief executive of the Crown Estate, wrote in the report, adding that the Crown Estate’s revenue and valuation will normalize over the coming years.

The Crown Estate launched its Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5 at the beginning of 2024, which could potentially lead to floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea. (It’s not clear how much the estate will make from that round; the report did note that while auction rates will likely be lower for future rounds, it expects underlying profits to continue to grow.) The report states that more than 260 turbines—each up to 300 meters tall (about the height of the U.K.’s tallest building, the Shard)—are envisioned across the three sites, “sitting on an anchored platform the size of a football pitch.”