UK 3rd Offshore Wind Round

32.2 GW of potential new capacity has been identified under the Crown Estate's programme. From the Crown Estate website:

The developers who have signed exclusivity zone agreements are:

1. Moray Firth zone, Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd which is 75% owned by EDP Renovaveis and 25% owned by SeaEnergy Renewables – 1.3 GW

2. Firth of Forth zone, SeaGreen Wind Energy Ltd equally owned by SSE Renewables and Fluor – 3.5 GW

3. Dogger Bank zone, the Forewind Consortium equally owned by each of SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft – 9 GW

4. Hornsea zone, Siemens Project Ventures and Mainstream Renewable Power, a consortium equally owned by Mainstream Renewable Power and Siemens Project Ventures and involving Hochtief Construction – 4 GW

5. Norfolk Bank zone, East Anglia Offshore Wind Ltd equally owned by Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft – 7.2 GW

6. Hastings zone, Eon Climate and Renewables UK – 0.6 GW

7. West of Isle of Wight zone, Eneco New Energy – 0.9 GW

8. Bristol Channel zone, RWE Npower Renewables, the UK subsidiary of RWE Innogy – 1.5 GW

9. Irish Sea zone, Centrica Renewable Energy and involving RES Group – 4.2 GW


The clear winners, as shown in the graph above, are the big 6 utilities (except for Eon and especially EdF who are complete absent), plus Vattenfall, which is increasingly becoming a member of the big 6.

Another data point in windfarm valuation

By now, you will have seen Centrica's announcement on the sales of 50% interests in windfarms at Lynn, Inner Dowsing (offshore) and Glens of Foudland (onshore).

The key section is here: Centrica also announced that it has agreed the sale of a 50 per cent equity stake in its Lynn, Inner Dowsing and Glens of Foudland wind farms to the US-based investment management company TCW for a cash consideration of £84 million, and entered into agreements to raise approximately £340 million of non-recourse project finance facilities from a consortium of banks for these assets. The transactions value the wind farms at approximately £460 million in aggregate.

Using a 10% discount rate, and what we think are reasonable electricity and ROC prices (£60/MWh and £37/MWh respectively), we see the values (100%) as:

Glens of Foudland (26MW) - £35 million
Lynn (81 MW) - £134 million
Inner Dowsing (81 MW) - £134 million
Lynn (extension, 90 MW)- £181 million
Inner Dowsing (extension, 90 MW) - £181 million

So we get a total of £675 million for 100% of the windfarms - a considerably higher number. We have to drop the power price to less than £40/MWh or increase the discount rate to around 15% to get the value to line up with Centrica's valuation.

Also, Centrica announced that the 270 MW of Lincs would cost some £725 million - £2.69 million per MW installed. Not bad - less than the equivalent (announced) amount for Greater Gabbard. I wonder if this suggests turbine prices are weakening somewhat?

Sunday Herald story on wind resource

Couldn't resist the opportunity to link to http://www.sundayherald.com/mostpopular.var.2509982.mostviewed.blown_away_by_the_north_sea.php">this story from the Sunday Herald this week.  The gist is that Atmos Consulting has access to NASA wind data, which they appear to have processed to review the wind resource and potential energy capture from sites for Third Round offshore windfarms.

I was called up to comment on the analysis, and inevitably the quote is rather simpler than the half hour conversation I had with the journo.