Energy and clean growth minister Kwasi Kwarteng has launched a review into the regime for designing and building offshore transmission infrastructure with the aim of removing barriers to the mass deployment of offshore wind.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said the current arrangements, whereby developers take responsibility for installing the assets required to bring their power onshore, was set up when the sector was still in its infancy and may no longer be suitable for rolling out offshore wind at the scales required.
The review is intended to fulfil a recommendation from the Committee on Climate Change in its 2020 report to parliament to “develop a strategy to coordinate interconnectors and offshore networks for wind farms and their connections to the onshore network”.
BEIS said the review will “bring together the key stakeholders involved in the timing, siting, design and delivery of offshore wind to consider all aspects of the existing regime and how this influences the design and delivery of transmission infrastructure”. As well as conducting a longer-term strategic review of the regime, the department said it would also seek to identify quick wins and early opportunities for co-ordination between projects.
Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley said: “Our Decarbonisation Action Plan recognised that the UK’s 2030 offshore wind target requires a step-change in the way offshore generation and transmission is planned, developed and connected.
“This will help our world leading offshore wind sector to increase capacity and Britain achieve net zero whilst ensuring the cost to consumers is minimised.”
Fintan Slye, executive director of National Grid Electricity System Operator, said: “Assessing the most beneficial approach to offshore connections will be vital to offshore wind reaching its potential to facilitate net zero in a way that minimises the impact on consumers and coastal communities.”
He continued: “We are currently carrying out a project to assess the costs and benefits of different coordinated offshore network designs and the technology available to deliver them.
“We are also assessing whether changes could be made to the offshore connections regime to encourage more coordination and whether there is a role for us to remove some of the other barriers to a more coordinated approach, such as in technical and commercial network codes and standards.”
Speaking to Utility Week recently, National Grid chief executive John Pettigrew called for the construction of an offshore transmission network in the North Sea as part of a green economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The North Sea Wind Power Hub consortium led by the Dutch and Danish transmission system operators Tennet and Energinet is already developing plans to create such a network based on a “hub and spoke” model. It has proposed to build the first of these hubs, capable of connecting up to 10GW of offshore wind capacity, in Danish waters by 2030.