Big guns win UK Round 3 offshore wind zones

Friday, 8th January 2010

A who's who of major wind power developers has won licences from the UK's Crown Estate to develop massive offshore projects, which are earmarked to supply 32 GW of electricity, equivalent to a quarter of the UK's demand.

The winners include Spanish wind power giant Iberdrola, German utilities RWE and E.ON, Portugal's EDP Renovaveis (EDPR), UK utility Centrica, and Scandinavian utilities Statkraft and Vattenfall, as well as other big developers like Mainstream Renewable Power and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) Renewables, and engineering firm Siemens. However, Denmark's Dong, another major offshore player, does not figure on the list of winners.

As expected, the Forewind consortium made up of SSE Renewables, RWE, Statoil and Statkraft won the licence for the biggest zone, Dogger Bank, with a potential of 9GW, while Iberdrola's ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall took the 7.2 GW Norfolk Bank Zone.

The successful bidders will now work with the Crown Estate to take forward projects in the zones through the planning and consenting phase. Once consents have been obtained, developers would expect to construct the wind farm projects between 2015 and 2020. The developers who have signed zone exclusivity agreements are:

- Moray Firth Zone (1.3 GW): Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd which is 75% owned by EDP Renovaveis and 25% owned by SeaEnergy Renewables

- Firth of Forth Zone (3.5 GW) SeaGreen Wind Energy Ltd equally owned by SSE Renewables and Fluor

- Dogger Bank Zone, the Forewind Consortium equally owned by SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft - 9 GW

- Hornsea Zone (4 GW), a consortium owned by Siemens Project Ventures and Mainstream Renewable Power and involving Hochtief Construction

- Norfolk Bank Zone (7.2 GW), East Anglia Offshore Wind Ltd equally owned by Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft

- Hastings Zone (0.6 GW), Eon Climate and Renewables UK

- West of Isle of Wight Zone (0.9), Eneco New Energy

- Bristol Channel Zone (1.5 GW), RWE Npower Renewables,

- Irish Sea Zone (4.2 GW), Centrica Renewable Energy and involving RES Group

(For full article see www.rechargenews.com website, or paste this the following address into your browser http://bit.ly/7mnoOa)

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