The UK’s energy regulator Ofgem is inviting tenders to own and operate a prebuilt electricity transmission link connecting one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms to the UK grid.
The now-opened Offshore Transmission Owner (OFTO) Tender Round 12 is accepting bids from investors to acquire, own and operate the transmission infrastructure that connects RWE’s 1.4GW Sofia offshore wind farm to the North Yorkshire electricity grid.
The Sofia offshore wind farm is located 195km offshore the northeast of the UK, and is connected to the grid via subsea cables, as well as onshore cabling and both on and offshore converter stations and substations that have all been built. Ofgem states that the electricity links could be worth as much as £4 billion.
The OFTO scheme launched in 2009, in an effort to encourage investment into offshore transmission links. Since the scheme launched, winning bidders have invested over £11 billion into transmission links connecting 27 offshore wind farms to the UK grid. Ofgem estimates that it will bring an average of £6 billion of OFTO assets to market each year between now and 2030.
The regulator has also revealed that later this year it plans to launch Tender Round 13 under the scheme, which will be its biggest tender round to date and will concern the transmission assets for three major offshore wind farms; the 1.2GW Dogger Bank C, the 1.1GW Inch Cap development, and the 1.4GW East Anglia 3 project.
Beatrice Filkin, Ofgem’s director of major projects said: “Connecting offshore wind farms such as Sofia helps harness the power of the North Sea to keep the lights on and deliver homegrown energy to British consumers.
“OFTO is part of Ofgem’s work to attract investors into the UK to boost growth and build a stable and secure energy system to deliver clean power to people’s homes. As well as successfully attracting the investment needed to upgrade our energy system, OFTO also ensures that we as regulator deliver a good deal for consumers and keep bills as low as possible.”
Interest in interconnectors increasing
There has been a significant amount of interest in subsea cable opportunities of late, for both domestic and international connections.
Last week, it was announced that the LionLink subsea interconnector project, which will connect Dutch offshore wind farms to the UK and Dutch electricity grids, had selected the town of Walberswick, Suffolk, as its preferred landfall location. The 19.9km of cabling will be capable of transmitting up to 1.8GW of electricity once complete.
Meanwhile, construction is now underway on the Eastern Green Link 1, a 190km high-voltage transmission cable that will link the south-east Scotland with the north-east of England. Most of this cabling will be undersea, with only 20km of onshore cabling being used to connect the link to substations and converter stations in Scotland and England.
Last month, Ofgem launched a consultation into a proposed subsea cable development for the Hebridies and Orkney in Scotland. The consultation will investigate if a replacement existing subsea cable connecting Ardmore on the Isle of Skye and Lorch Carnan on South Uist should receive additional funding from the regulator, or if the project should be altered to a more cost-effective solution such as overhead cabling.
