UK offshore wind energy production in 2013.


“London Array was the first


offshore windfarm in the world to achieve an annual output of more than 2 TWh in a single year, approximately 17 per cent of the UK’s 2013 generation from offshore wind, despite not being fully commissioned until April 2013,” said The Crown Estate.


This upbeat assessment of the likely performance of the UK industry to 2020 has been greeted positively by the main UK renewable energy trade body, with Nick Medic, director of offshore renewables at RenewableUK, agreeing that is on course for at least a 100 per cent increase in capacity by 2020. “We believe that the offshore industry is on course to meet at least 10 GW. In addition to The Crown Estate’s assessment, we base this on our Offshore Wind Project Timelines document, which we have been producing every year since 2012. The document is based on direct reports from developers and shows a robust pipeline to 2020 and beyond. In fact, Timelines shows that we are likely to exceed 10 GW by 2020,” said Mr Medic.


He also highlighted a number of key technological, operational and financial areas that are likely to exert a strong influence on the UK’s ability to achieve the scale of growth predicted by The Crown Estate. “We believe that cost reduction,


meaning reducing the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from offshore, is key to further mass deployment. We’re already making good progress on this,” he said.


“On the policy side, the industry is hoping for a longer-term vision for offshore wind, which needs to contain visibility on the post-2020 financial framework for the sector as well as


Nick Medic: “There is a practical


reason to look at improving efficiency of connection and transmission”


clarity on the government’s further decarbonisation objectives – including a specific 2030 decarbonisation target,” he added.


In a glowing assessment, Mr Medic also pointed out that, from the industry’s point of view, The Crown Estate has been playing an “essential enabling role” in the successful development of offshore wind and will continue to do so in the decades ahead. The second report, Sharing lessons learned and good practice in offshore transmission, outlines some concrete ways in which the offshore wind industry as a whole can take a more structured approach to the way in which knowledge is shared between stakeholders and proposes the creation of a new ‘knowledge hub’ to facilitate improved information sharing between organisations and individuals. Between December 2013 and


February 2014, The Crown Estate commissioned partner classification society DNV GL to interview a broad range of industry stakeholders in


Increased Scottish investment


In another recent report, The Crown Estate also revealed that Scotland has benefited from a 13.6 per cent increase in net capital investment, raising the overall figure for 2013–2014 to over £5 million, with a significant proportion of overall Crown Estate investment over the year channelled towards supporting Scotland’s emerging


www.owjonline


low-carbon energy industry. The 2014 Crown Estate


Scotland Report, also published in June, shows that The Crown Estate’s total capital investment in Scotland over the last four years now totals some £33.1 million, with £5.7 million invested over the last financial year via its energy and infrastructure portfolio, including offshore wind.


order to better understand the issues they had encountered on offshore transmission projects to date, as well as the impacts associated with them. The results are presented in a section called ‘Lessons learned in offshore transmission’, which reveals that offshore transmission projects “have suffered from, and been adversely impacted by, a range of challenges and issues across project life cycles”. Chief amongst these challenges is an uncertain regulatory framework, which was highlighted as an issue by almost 50 per cent of respondents. Other key challenges include lack of competition in the supply chain and high voltage direct current (HVDC) lead times, as well as problems associated with the installation and burial of cable. In the report, The Crown Estate


also offers a number of ‘enabling actions’ designed to help reduce the costs and risk associated with developing the UK’s offshore renewables sector (see table). Mr Medic also welcomed the


recommendations laid out in the report and highlighted the fact that, if the UK offshore sector co-ordinated its efforts to avoid the existing problems associated with offshore transmission outlined in the report, it would reduce the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from offshore wind by 6 per cent, “so there is a very practical reason to look at improving efficiency of connection and transmission,” he told OWJ. He also offered some additional advice to the UK offshore wind industry about how best to share best practice in this area and revealed that RenewableUK is very interested in sharing international experiences in offshore wind.


“This is quickly becoming a global


industry, hence, in 2012. we started our Global Offshore Wind conferences. Secondly, despite the sector maturing quickly – it is set to become one of the biggest contributors to electricity supply in the UK – the research and development work is by no means over,” he said.


“One of RenewableUK’s founder


members, Andrew Garrad, put this particularly well, saying that we will come to think of offshore wind projects not as windfarms but as ‘power stations at sea’. This actually might free up a lot of creative thinking in how we best design, build and operate future projects,” he concluded. OWJ


Offshore Wind Journal I 3rd Quarter 2014 I 27


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