The UK’s Crown Estate has granted permission for the extension of a number of offshore wind farm developments, a move that could add a further 2 GW of capacity to the grid.
The extensions will increase the capacity of five sites that were licensed by the Crown Estate in rounds 1 and 2 of the UK’s offshore wind development process. The operators granted extensions include RWE npower renewables, SSE Renewables, Vattenfall Wind Power and Dong Wind UK.
According to the Crown Estate, which is a government department that owns and manages the seabed around the UK’s coastline, these license awards will help to provide a stable flow of construction projects to the offshore wind supply chain in advance of the Round 3 construction projects. The projects include a 504 MW extension to the Greater Gabbard project by SSE Renewables and RWE npower, and a 750 MW extension to the Walney project, which is being developed by Dong.
“This 2 GW has been driven by developers’ appetite and will increase the total potential 2020 installed capacity to 48 GW,” said Rob Hastings, the Crown Estate’s Director of Marine Estate. “It is another positive step in the maturing of the offshore wind industry and will significantly support the growth of the supply chain as it adds further to the pipeline of construction projects.”
The announcement was also welcomed by trade body RenewableUK. “Today’s announcement gives definitive and positive evidence of the environmental and commercial viability of existing offshore projects,” said Maria McCaffery, CEO of RenewableUK. “The site extensions come as a direct consequence of the UK’s world beating offshore wind farms showing that, after a successful start, they have further potential for growth.”
The Crown Estate is expecting the construction of the extension projects to start in 2014, with completion by 2016 in advance of the Round 3 projects. Other projects granted extensions are Vattenfall’s Kentish Flats, which will increase by 51 MW and Dong’s Burbo Bank project, which will be extended by 234 MW.
Vattenfall will also increase the capacity of its Thanet project by 147 MW.
“The opportunity to develop a wind farm close to the Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm site has a number of advantages: we know that it is an excellent site for a wind farm, there is already the necessary infrastructure in place and, if consented, one can benefit from the long-term operational and maintenance activities due to the close proximity of the two wind farms,” said Paul Coffey, CEO of RWE Innogy.