RWE Applies For Rampion 2 Development Consent, Reduces Number Of Offshore Wind Turbines
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Last month, RWE and its project partners submitted an application for the development consent order (DCO) for the Rampion 2 offshore wind farm in the UK. The Planning Inspectorate accepted the application for examination on 7 September and will start the examination process within three months.
RWE and other major wind developers may well have taken a pass in acquiring new offshore wind leases in the Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 5 last week, but RWE seem to be carrying on with the projects they already have.
Dates for the 1200 MW Rampion 2 wind farm include.
- Development Consent – Early 2025
- Construction Start – Late 2026 or Early 2027
- Fully Operational – End of the decade.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rampion 2 being earlier, as it is the only wind farm in the development queue in the South of England.
The Anonymous Widower 
Given no offshore wind applied for a CfD in AR5 last week you have to wonder how much money and time these companies are prepared to invest up front now. Vattenfall blew 400m on Norfolk Boreas before stepping back from construction. Also no floating wind was awarded last week as well.
Reality is wind is got too expensive and thats before you include all the additional costs in the background to manage system frequency drift you get from renewables and then pay the fossil fuel plants to stay on the system just in case we need them. Wonder which politician will stand up and say energy will cost more forever more thats the price for for saving the planet.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | September 13, 2023 |
I am working on another post, but I do feel, that Vattenfall’s two Norfolk wind farm became a liability for several reasons.
Mainly, there is no market for large amounts of electricity in Norfolk. The only market is to create hydrogen by electrolysis and feed it into the gas network at Bacton, which is one of the points where the UK and Europe gas networks connect to each other.
Also according to a Swedish friend, Sweden has trouble at home.
Comment by AnonW | September 13, 2023 |
There is even less demand in Scotland but AR5 awarded another 1.5GW of onshore wind to an already overloaded system. Take tonight where Ratcliffe coal ps has had 3 units on line generating the highest amount of energy from coal in over 18mths and at the same time we are constraining off wind because the European i/cs have been in export mode (except Norway) so the grid is overloaded trying to shift power to the South of the UK leaving reduced capacity for wind from Scotland. The answer to this is the two HVDC links to bypass the the Scotland/England but there not likely to be in use till next decade although i see a prime EPC has been appointed for one of them.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | September 13, 2023
Scotland has 55 GWh of pumped storage under construction and also National Grid are building four interconnectors from North East Scotland to North-East England and Lincolnshire.
I can also see some big hydrogen electrolysers being built in Scotland.
Comment by AnonW | September 13, 2023 |