Offshore staff
PARIS and LONDON – Total, bp, and RWE have successfully bid for seabed leases under the UK’s latest offshore wind offering.
Under a joint venture with Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG), Total has secured rights to a lease in the Eastern Regions zone in the Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4.
The project, off the coast of East Anglia, eastern England, could supply up to 1.5 GW.
According to Total, GIG has to date supported almost 50% of the UK’s offshore wind capacity in operation.
Total is already involved in the 1.1-GW Seagreen project off Scotland’s east coast, and in Erebus, a 96-MW floating offshore wind project in the Celtic Sea off southern Ireland.
The two parties are also cooperating in South Korea to co-develop various floating offshore wind projects.
Julien Pouget, senior vice president Renewables at Total, said the latest award was “our largest renewables development in Europe to date and an important step toward our 2050 net zero ambition.
“This success builds on our historical expertise in the UK offshore and is paving the way to expansion of our renewable energy offering in the country in line with our strategy of becoming a broad-energy company.”
Total/GIG will pay an annual option fee of £83,000 ($113,000) per MW/year during the development phase. A habitat regulations assessment will now follow concerning of the possible impact of the project on relevant nature conservation sites in the allotted area.
Pending the conclusions, final agreements for the lease should be signed in 2022.
bp and Germany’s Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (EnBW) were the preferred bidder for two leases in the Irish Sea, marking bp’s entry to the UK’s offshore wind power sector.
According to the company, the two leases offer a combined potential generating capacity of 3 GW, with a 60-year lease life, sufficient to power more than 3.4 million UK households.
The two companies plan to form a 50-50 venture to jointly develop and operate the leases, and they expect to make four annual payments of £231 million ($317 million) on each lease before the projects reach a final investment decision.
Operations could begin within seven years.
The two leases are around 30 km (18.6 mi) off the coasts of northwest England and north Wales, and in water depths of 35-40 m (115-131 ft).
Lease one covers an area of around 300 sq km (116 sq mi) and lease two 500 sq km (193 sq mi), and being adjacent, should generate synergies in procurement, development, and operational costs.
Pre-work activities are under way, including collection of environmental data through bird surveys, and the two companies have applied for a grid connection.
Agreements for the leases should be in place by spring 2022.
RWE was the preferred bidder for two adjacent offshore wind sites with a total potential capacity of 3,000 MW.
The average price the company was awarded to lease seabed was £82,552 ($113,000) per MW/year, which was the lowest awarded price during the auction.
The awarded sites are in the shallow central area of the North Sea known as Dogger Bank, 110 km (68 mi) from the northeast coast of England. The sites are close to RWE’s Sofia offshore wind development project.
02/08/2021
