On the same day that Boris Johnson was blown out of the water as British Prime Minister it was timely that one of the UK national flagships he chose to identify with most closely – its booming offshore wind sector – simultaneously hit new highs and new lows on its way to becoming what the deposed Conservative leader liked to describe as “the Saudi Arabia of wind”.
The high came in the form of a record 7GW of offshore wind offered power deals out of a total 11GW of renewables successful in the UK’s biggest ever contract-for-difference (CfD) round. The low came as the ‘strike prices’ for that offshore power dropped again from 2019’s level, despite all the cost pressures bearing down on the sector.
Orsted was the biggest winner of all with its 2.9GW Hornsea 3 mega-project, clearing the way for the Danish group to create what it describes as “the world’s largest offshore wind zone” off eastern England – while still insisting it will maintain “financial discipline” despite its low CfD bid.
The tough choices facing developers and supply chain players were on the minds of leading sector analysts as they gave Recharge exclusive insights into the implications for areas such as supply chain investment of the ever-lower green power costs.
At the other end of the price spectrum tidal energy scored a debut win in UK CfD rounds at a strike price equivalent to $214/MWh – a breakthrough that industry chiefs said finally marks the start of its journey “from a resource to a large-scale power source”.
One of the most cheering awards of the UK round was the 15-year deal handed to the 32MW TwinHub floating wind array being advanced by Swedish sector pioneer Hexicon, the first CfD for floating and at a £87.30/MWh power price that was hailed as a competitive debut for the technology.
TwinHub is located off Cornwall, southwest England, a fitting location given the headlines generated around Celtic Sea floating wind power this week as UK seabed landlord Crown Estate mapped out five gigascale zones with a view to seeing as much as 24GW online there by 2045.
In an exclusive interview, Tim Stiven, senior development manager at the Crown Estate, gave Recharge a detailed insight into its ambitions for the Celtic Sea, where it sees huge potential for a boom in floating wind-related manufacturing along the coasts.
As the UK again raised the stakes for green power generation, the networks needed to move that power where it is needed also loomed large.
On the day that Britain awarded another 7GW of offshore wind power deals, the UK’s National Grid unveiled plans for a £54bn upgrade to get the nation’s transmission system fit for 50GW of wind at sea by 2050.
The same challenge – how to get vast amounts of renewable power from sea to land then onwards – is also being tackled by Sweden, where Recharge exclusively revealed plans to build up to six connection points to connect as much as 10GW of capacity.
It’s also increasingly clear that as the energy transition gathers pace, the network dilemma will be one faced by green molecules as well as electrons. Recharge also this week reported how plans to construct the world’s first national hydrogen network in the Netherlands may not be quite as easy to replicate as hoped by other nations.
