The UK opened the door for up to 2.8GW more offshore wind off its coasts when seabed landlord The Crown Estate gave developers the green lights for extensions to some of the nation’s largest existing projects.

The Crown Estate confirmed it has now signed agreements for lease to extend the Sheringham Shoal, Dudgeon, Greater Gabbard, Galloper, Rampion and Gwynt y Môr wind farms.

Developers will now focus on securing planning consent and grid connections for the potential projects in the usual way.

Extension of existing wind farms is part of the UK’s wider strategy to hit 40GW of offshore wind by 2030, up from about 10GW now, that also includes major leasing rounds underway for brand new acreage off England, Wales and Scotland.

Will Apps, head of energy development, at The Crown Estate said: “Extensions projects offer a valuable way of enabling new, low cost offshore wind capacity, making efficient use of our world-class seabed resources and building on developers’ existing project knowledge and infrastructure.”

Norway’s Equinor had already announced lease agreements for the Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon extensions, which will add about 700MW. Sweden's Vattenfall already had an agreement for lease for an extension to its Thanet project, but saw that knocked back by planners earlier this year.

Big role for RWE

The Greater Gabbard extension of up to 504MW, to be known as North Falls offshore wind farm, will be a 50/50 joint venture between German utility RWE and UK counterpart SSE.

RWE will also be the 60% majority-owner of the up to 576MW Gwynt y Môr extension in the Irish Sea, called Awel y Môr, and holds 50.01% in Rampion 2, a joint venture between RWE Renewables, Enbridge and a Macquarie-led consortium.

RWE will manage the Rampion 2 project, where it has been decided to seek to develop the remaining seabed option at the original zone 6 of the existing project and combine this with the extension project at this wind farm, bringing the total potential to up to 1.2GW.

In total RWE will be involved in projects with a potential 1.8GW of extra capacity.

“With a combined RWE pro rata share amounting potentially to around 1.3GW [including the Rampion 2 remaining seabed option], this brings a massive boost to our project pipeline and strengthens RWE’s position as being the second biggest player in offshore wind globally,” said Sven Utermohlen, RWE Renewables chief operating officer for global offshore wind.

Utermohlen told Recharge in an interview that work has started on all four extensions in parallel. “But then the exact timeline of these projects depends to some extent on the consultation and permitting process which has some uncertainties around exactly how long it is going to take. And likewise it depends on the exact grid connection dates that we receive at some point from National Grid.

“So whether they will be able to participate in the same contract for difference (CfD) round, or whether they will have slightly different schedules, its too early to tell. How many turbines will depend on details of the engineering, but also the planning process which needs to take into account the size of turbines, visual impact, and other factors.”

Utermohlen said the physical conditions at the extension sites means all four will be developed with bottom-fixed and not floating structures. “Again we have not made any engineering decisions on the types of foundations, but most likely they will probably be monopile design,” he told Recharge.

RWE said all the four projects are in the very early stages. The necessary development and consenting activities will now progress in accordance with current UK government guidelines which will include comprehensive stakeholder consultation and determining each project’s exact installed capacity.

The consenting processes for all the extensions are expected to take three to five years, with participation in CfD auctions and project construction following thereafter.

It is expected the wind farms could become fully operational towards the end of the decade.

“I expect the four offshore wind extension projects to bring significant benefits to the UK energy infrastructure and economy. They present a potential multi-billion pound investment and could grow the local supply chain as well as lead to the creation of hundreds of jobs,” said Tom Glover, RWE Renewables chief commercial officer and UK country chair.

Wind

UK opens way for 2.8GW more offshore wind with extensions leases