Ofgem opens £1.9b tender for transmission links

Ofgem, the UK’s energy market regulator, has opened the second tender round for high-voltage transmission links worth around £1.9 billion for six offshore wind projects.

Winning tenders for the first links will be announced in summer 2011.

This is the second tender round in the offshore transmission regime, which is a joint policy initiative between Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Ofgem, to encourage cost-effective investment in the vital network links between the offshore windfarms and the mainland grid.

Companies will be competing for the right to own and operate the links to 2.8 GW of offshore wind farms for the next 20 years. 

Tenders for the first three projects, Gwynt-y-Mor, a project planned by RWE, Centrica’s Lincs wind farm and London Array, has started. Tenders for the other three, E.ON’s Humber Gateway, Centrica’s Race Bank and West of Duddon Sands, owned by Iberdrola SA’s Scottish Power unit and Dong Energy, are expected to start in Spring 2012 once they have met the necessary qualifying requirements. 

According to Ofgem, the first tender round for £1.1 billion of links attracted almost £4 billion of investment appetite.

The offshore regulatory regime for licensing offshore electricity transmission was introduced in 2009.

The first phase of the project involves two transitional tender rounds and opens the way for transmission licensees to own and operate transmission assets for offshore renewable projects, which have been or are being constructed by the offshore generator. Subsequent tenders will be known as the enduring regime.

EWEA calls for a strong energy infrastructure

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) has highlighted that if governments do not get behind the proposal for a European grid, the industry will face an “absurd situation” in which renewable energy capacity is being built, but no adequate grid exists to deliver the 34% of renewable electricity needed by 2020 to reach the EU’s binding renewable energy targets.

The Association emphasised the significance of such a grid following the European Commission’s recent communication, “Energy infrastructure priorities for 2020 and beyond”.

“If permitting procedures for grids and infrastructure projects of European interest are not improved and better coordinated, the EU will fail to meet its energy and climate objectives,” said Christian Kjaer, CEO of EWEA.

The Association believes it is vital for the Commission to propose new financial solutions to finance the new infrastructure, including regulated rates of return for infrastructure projects of European interest.

According to the Commission, investment of about €1 trillion is needed to complete a modern pan-European electrical grid connecting all countries, allowing them to distribute supply wherever needed. Projects and funding to upgrade and extend the grid would be fast-tracked. Offshore wind and solar sources would be better connected to the grid, encouraging more investment in renewable energy.

The European Commission has presented its new strategy, Energy 2020, defining the energy priorities for the next 10 years.

The new energy strategy focuses on five priorities:

1. Achieving an energy efficient Europe;

2. Building a truly pan-European integrated energy market;

3. Empowering consumers and achieving the highest level of safety and security;

4. Extending Europe’s leadership in energy technology and innovation;

5. Strengthening the external dimension of the EU energy market.

UK: Liverpool to become offshore wind energy hub

A new report published by The Mersey Partnership (TMP), an inward investment agency, has highlighted that Liverpool City Region could become the west coast’s major hub in development of the UK’s offshore wind industry.

The report, prepared by global consulting engineers Arup, has identified many of the region’s existing port, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution assets, setting out how they can be combined to make a compelling case for the creation of a major supply chain to serve Rounds 2 & 3 Irish Sea Zone wind farm development.

The developments proposed in this Zone alone are estimated to be worth £15 billion to the UK economy. Overall, UK offshore wind industry investment is expected to exceed £100bn in the next decade.

Key City Region assets identified in the report include: Port of Liverpool, Cammell Laird, 3MG / Stobart Park at Halton, Port Wirral, former Bridgewater Paper Mill, Ellesmere Port and Port Ince. According to TMP, one of the biggest strengths is that the key sites identified would require limited adaptation in order to service offshore wind industry requirements. 

The report says developing, building and maintaining the proposed Irish Sea installation - in deep water, 70km offshore - will be a huge undertaking requiring a wide range of engineering and manufacturing expertise. In this context a sophisticated support and logistics infrastructure will be required, providing the potential for the creation of a Liverpool City Region-based supply chain creating thousands of new jobs.

Round 3 Irish Sea Zone has the potential to generate 4.2GW of electricity from a total of 850 wind turbines.

€38bn to be spent on offshore wind over next 5 years

Energy business analyst firm Douglas-Westwood has indicated that the world offshore wind market will see expenditure of €38 billion over the next five years. By 2015, annual expenditure will be in excess of €12 billion.

Over the five-year period to 2015, more than 11GW of new capacity will be installed. The UK, Germany and China will install almost 9.3GW, or 83%, of total global capacity for the period. The offshore wind industry is growing at a rapid pace, with over 3GW of capacity online by the end of 2010 and a further 2GW under construction at present. Annual installations in 2010 are in excess of 1GW for the first time.

Douglas-Westwood expects activity off the coast of China to grow rapidly with the country potentially challenging the UK and Germany as market leader by the end of the decade. The UK will continue its position as the leading market for offshore wind through the next five years with over 4.4GW of new capacity coming online.

Referring to China, John Westwood, chairman of Douglas-Westwood, said for a relatively new entrant to the industry, China has massive ambition. A succession of small projects is now underway with construction of many larger projects imminent. Over €3 billion is expected to be spent in China over the next five years.

“With projects reaching completion in as little as three years (compared to typically 6-10 in Europe), there is significant upside potential here. Multiple domestic Chinese turbine manufacturers are releasing offshore turbines with little foreign involvement expected elsewhere in the supply chain,” said Westwood.

A recent report released by ocean conservation group Oceana indicated that offshore wind can generate nearly 30% more electricity than offshore oil and gas resources combined on the Atlantic coast. According to the report, developing 127 GW offshore wind energy capacity over 20 years would provide energy at a cost of about $36 billion less than the production of economically recoverable new offshore oil and natural gas.

Also, offshore wind development off the Atlantic coast could create between 133,000 and 212,000 jobs annually in the US – more than three times as many jobs than new offshore oil and natural gas development is expected to create.

Although the United States has built no offshore wind projects so far, about 20 projects representing more than 2,000 MW of capacity are in the planning and permitting process. Most of these activities are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, although projects are being considered along the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Coast. The deep waters off the West Coast, however, pose a technology challenge for the near term.

According to recent estimates from the DoE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the U.S. offshore winds have a gross potential generating capacity four times greater than the nation’s present electric capacity. This total gross wind resource is estimated at more than 4,000 GW, or roughly four times the generating capacity currently carried on the U.S. electric grid.

This estimate assumes that one 5-MW wind turbine could be placed on every square kilometre of water with an annual average wind speed above 7.0 metres per second (m/s). The gross resource has been quantified by state, water depth, distance from shore, and wind class throughout a band extending out to 50 nautical miles from the U.S. coastline.

Executive shuffle at Broadwind Energy

Naperville, Illinois-based Broadwind Energy has appointed Peter C. Duprey as its president and chief executive officer, effective December 1.

Duprey will also serve on Broadwind’s board of directors. He most recently served as chief executive officer of Acciona Energy North America.

J. Cameron Drecoll, Broadwind’s chief executive officer since October, 2007, is retiring, but will provide technical advice and transition support under a consulting agreement.

Broadwind is an independent provider of installation support and operations and maintenance services for the wind industry. The Company also offers repair and refurbishing of complex wind components, including control systems, gearboxes and blades.

The company reported revenue of $38.2 million for the third quarter of 2010, up 4% from the second quarter of 2010. Compared to the third quarter of 2009, revenues declined 36% from $59.5 million primarily due to lower tower production, reduced deployment of service technicians and lower hauling activity linked to the overall decline in the US wind industry.

Pipeline Engineering bags £7.75m contract

Pipeline Engineering, a subsidiary of CIRCOR International’s Energy Products Group, has signed a £7.75 million contract with London Array Limited.

London Array Limited is a consortium for offshore wind farm, London Array, with three shareholders: E.ON, DONG Energy and Masdar. The London Array wind farm is to be built approximately 12 miles off the Kent and Essex coasts in the outer Thames estuary. Pipeline Engineering was contracted for the first 630MW Phase of the project, which includes the installation of 175 turbines starting in 2011. Shipments are expected to occur throughout 2011.

Pipeline Engineering will supply a proprietary system to protect export and array cables between 175 offshore wind turbines, two offshore and one onshore substation.

Key elements of the London Array project are: Up to 341 turbines, installed over a four-year period; associated offshore and onshore substations; cabling (between turbines and to shore). The wind farm turbine towers and substations are interconnected via subsea array cables and subsea export cables. They need to be protected during deployment and during service life from movement due to wave action and other turbulence across the exposed monopile scour zone. Pipeline’s offering provides abrasion protection, impact protection, fatigue protection and cable over bending protection.

On-going study shows large reduction in bat mortality

The second year of research to study the interaction between bats and wind turbines at the Casselman Wind Power Project has indicated that increasing the cut-in speed on turbines during summer-fall migration periods greatly reduces fatality risk for bats.

Iberdrola Renewables, the owner of the Casselman wind farm, partnered with independent conservation group, Bat Conservation International (BCI), to implement the study at the southwestern Pennsylvania wind power project.  

Dr. Ed Arnett, conservation scientist at BCI and programme coordinator for the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, led a team of scientists that tested the reduction in bat deaths by increasing the minimum wind speed necessary for turbines to begin spinning and producing electricity into the power grid.

“We hypothesised that bat fatalities could be lowered substantially by reducing the amount of turbine operating hours during low wind periods when bats are most active. During the study period, bat fatalities were reduced from 44 to 93% at turbines that were partially curtailed during low wind nights compared to those turbines that were fully operational the whole time,” said Dr. Arnett.  

From late July to mid-October in 2008 and again in 2009, Iberdrola Renewables, working with BCI researchers, conducted a controlled experiment in which selected wind turbines at the Casselman project were stopped during relatively low wind-speed nights as recommended by BCI in the late summer and early fall.

It has been pointed out that curtailing turbine operations is not likely to be the complete solution to reducing the impact on bats in all circumstances or locations, but it may be a practical solution at some northeastern U.S. sites.

Turbines at the Casselman facility are GE SLE 1.5 MW turbines with a 77 m rotor diameter, 4,657 m2 rotor-swept area, 80 m hub height, variable rotor speeds from 12–20 RPMs, and cut-in speed of 3.5 m/s. Twelve turbines were used for the operational curtailment experiment and three turbine treatments were employed: 1) fully operational, 2) cut-in speed at 5.0 m/s, and 3) cut-in speed at 6.5 m/s, with four replicates of each treatment on each night of the experiment.

The Casselman Wind Project, located near the town of Rockwood in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, lies within the Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests eco-region that encompasses the moist broadleaf forests that cover the plateaus and rolling hills west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Vestas bags 90 MW order in Michigan

Vestas has bagged a 90 MW order for 50 V100-1.8 MW wind turbines from John Deere Wind Energy for the Michigan Wind II project near Minden City, Michigan, USA.

The contract includes delivery and commissioning along with a 10-year service and maintenance agreement. Delivery is scheduled for mid-2011 and commissioning is expected by the end of 2011.

In 2007, Vestas supplied John Deere 32 V82-1.65 MW turbines to the Harvest Wind project near Bad Axe, Michigan, and an additional 33 V82-1.65 MW turbines for two projects in Oregon.