Seven leading renewable energy companies have joined forces with the Carbon Trust in its drive to make offshore wind more competitive. This ‘dash for wind’ accelerated yesterday as the Carbon Trust secured industry commitment from the seven developers — who represent over 50 per cent of the offshore wind capacity licensed in UK waters — to its Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA).
The announcement was made by Carbon Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, Michael Rea, addressing the UK offshore wind industry at RenewableUK’s Offshore Wind 2010 event in Liverpool. He told delegates that the OWA "is delivering on its mission" and industry is committed to working in partnership to create the vital engineering solutions to ensure a low carbon future.
Mainstream Renewable Power and Statkraft are the latest companies joining DONG Energy, RWE Innogy, Scottish Power Renewables, SSE Renewables and Statoil in committin to work with the Carbon Trust for the next four years with an investment totalling nearly £8m. The OWA is one of the world’s leading technology research and development programmes designed to drive down the costs of offshore wind. Its main objective is to reduce costs by ten per cent over the next decade, which would enable deployment to happen faster.
“In offshore wind the UK faces its biggest engineering challenge of the decade to reduce carbon, and exploit a real opportunity to generate UK economic growth," said Rae. "Offshore wind structures reach heights greater than the London Gherkin and deployment needs to happen faster, cheaper and more safely that ever before if we are to meet the EU’s 15 per cent renewable energy target.
“Our mission is to deliver market-ready technologies to the whole industry to drive out cost and make offshore wind more competitive. Working in collaboration with the leading developers is vital to address the key engineering challenges we must conquer. To succeed industry collaboration is vital to bringing down costs and the OWA is an example of this working in action.”
Reducing the cost of offshore wind power
Uffe K. Jørgensen, Senior Director for Renewables Construction Management & Concepts at DONG Energy said: “DONG Energy has pioneered offshore wind power during the past 20 years and we are committed to develop offshore wind power as one of our future core businesses.
"DONG Energy has an industry leading range of offshore wind farms in operation, under construction and in the pipeline — also in the UK — and we are eager to see development of new solutions that can reduce the cost of offshore wind energy and thereby help to unfold the huge potential of offshore wind power. Therefore we are pleased to continue our participation in the Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator, for the next four years.”
And Andy Kinsella, CEO, Offshore, of Mainstream Renewable Power added: “With over 5.5GW of offshore wind currently in development, Mainstream Renewable Power has joined the OWA because we believe the cost of energy must come down and offshore wind must become competitive in its own right. As fossil fuel prices increase and carbon taxes bite, making conventional power prices more expensive, wind energy with its free fuel has a pivotal role to play in reducing the cost of energy.
"The objectives of the OWA are consistent with Mainstream's thought leadership and our aim to see the COE drop. Furthermore, I believe that Mainstream brings a unique vision to the OWA that will inform and direct the programme to the benefit of the wider industry, particularly through our work on the North Sea Supergrid.”
