The Anonymous Widower

RWE Acquires 4.2-Gigawatt UK Offshore Wind Development Portfolio From Vattenfall

The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from RWE.

These three bullet points, act as sub-headings.

• Highly attractive portfolio of three projects at a late stage of development, with grid connections and permits secured, as well as advanced procurement of key components
• Delivery of the three Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone projects off the UK’s East Anglia coast will be part of RWE’s Growing Green investment and growth plans
• Agreed purchase price corresponds to an enterprise value of £963 million

These two paragraphs outline the deal.

RWE, one of the world’s leading offshore wind companies, will acquire the UK Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone portfolio from Vattenfall. The portfolio comprises three offshore wind development projects off the east coast of England – Norfolk Vanguard West, Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Boreas.

The three projects, each with a planned capacity of 1.4 gigawatts (GW), are located 50 to 80 kilometres off the coast of Norfolk in East Anglia. This area is one of the world’s largest and most attractive areas for offshore wind. After 13 years of development, the three development projects have already secured seabed rights, grid connections, Development Consent Orders and all other key permits. The Norfolk Vanguard West and Norfolk Vanguard East projects are most advanced, having secured the procurement of most key components. The next milestone in the development of these two projects is to secure a Contract for Difference (CfD) in one of the upcoming auction rounds. RWE will resume the development of the Norfolk Boreas project, which was previously halted. All three Norfolk projects are expected to be commissioned in this decade.

There is also this handy map, which shows the location of the wind farms.

Note that there are a series of assets along the East Anglian coast, that will be useful to RWE’s Norfolk Zone development.

1. In Vattenfall Selects Norfolk Offshore Wind Zone O&M Base, I talked about how the Port of Great Yarmouth will be the operational base for the Norfolk Zone wind farms.
2. Bacton gas terminal has gas interconnectors to Belgium and the Netherlands lies between Cromer and Great Yarmouth.
3. The cable to the Norfolk Zone wind farms is planned to make landfall between Bacton and Great Yarmouth.
4. Sizewell is South of Lowestoft and has the 1.25 GW Sizewell B nuclear power station, with the 3.2 GW Sizewell C on its way, for more than adequate backup.
5. Dotted around the Norfolk and Suffolk coast are 3.3 GW of earlier generations of wind farms, of which 1.2 GW have connections to RWE.
6. The LionLink multipurpose 1.8 GW interconnector will make landfall to the North of Southwold
7. There is also the East Anglian Array, which currently looks to be about 3.6 GW, that connects to the shore at Bawdsey to the South of Aldeburgh.
8. For recreation, there’s Southwold.
9. I can also see more wind farms squeezed in along the coast. For example, according to Wikipedia, the East Anglian Array could be increased in size to 7.2 GW.

It appears that a 15.5 GW hybrid wind/nuclear power station is being created on the North-Eastern coast of East Anglia.

The big problem is that East Anglia doesn’t really have any large use for electricity.

But the other large asset in the area is the sea.

• Undersea interconnectors can be built to other locations, like London or Europe, where there is a much greater need for electricity.
• In addition, the UK Government has backed a consortium, who have the idea of storing energy by using pressurised sea-water in 3D-printed concrete hemispheres under the sea. I wrote about this development in UK Cleantech Consortium Awarded Funding For Energy Storage Technology Integrated With Floating Wind.

A proportion of Russian gas in Europe, will have been replaced by Norfolk wind power and hydrogen, which will be given a high level of reliability from Suffolk nuclear power.

I have some other thoughts.

Would Hydrogen Be Easier To Distribute From Norfolk?

A GW-range electrolyser would be feasible but expensive and it would be a substantial piece of infrastructure.

I also feel, that placed next to Bacton or even offshore, there would not be too many objections from the Norfolk Nimbys.

Hydrogen could be distributed from the site in one of these ways.

• By road transport, as ICI did, when I worked in their hydrogen plant at Runcorn.
• I suspect, a rail link could be arranged, if there was a will.
• By tanker from the Port of Great Yarmouth.
• By existing gas interconnectors to Belgium and the Netherlands.

As a last resort it could be blended into the natural gas pipeline at Bacton.

In Major Boost For Hydrogen As UK Unlocks New Investment And Jobs, I talked about using the gas grid as an offtaker of last resort. Any spare hydrogen would be fed into the gas network, provided safety criteria weren’t breached.

I remember a tale from ICI, who from their refinery got a substantial amount of petrol, which was sold to independent petrol retailers around the North of England.

But sometimes they had a problem, in that the refinery produced a lot more 5-star petrol than 2-star. So sometimes if you bought 2-star, you were getting 5-star.

On occasions, it was rumoured that other legal hydrocarbons were disposed of in the petrol. I was once told that it was discussed that used diluent oil from polypropylene plants could be disposed of in this way. But in the end it wasn’t!

If hydrogen were to be used to distribute all or some of the energy, there would be less need for pylons to march across Norfolk.

Could A Rail Connection Be Built To The Bacton Gas Terminal

This Google Map shows the area between North Walsham and the coast.

Note.

1. North Walsham is in the South-Western corner of the map.
2. North Walsham station on the Bittern Line is indicated by the red icon.
3. The Bacton gas terminal is the trapezoidal-shaped area on the coast, at the top of the map.

ThisOpenRailwayMap shows the current and former rail lines in the same area as the previous Google Map.

Note.

1. North Walsham station is in the South-West corner of the map.
2. The yellow track going through North Walsham station is the Bittern Line to Cromer and Sheringham.
3. The Bacton gas terminal is on the coast in the North-East corner of the map.

I believe it would be possible to build a small rail terminal in the area with a short pipeline connection to Bacton, so that hydrogen could be distributed by train.

There used to be a branch line from North Walsham station to Cromer Beach station, that closed in 1953.

Until 1964 it was possible to get trains to Mundesley-on-Sea station.

So would it be possible to build a rail spur to the Bacton gas terminal along the old branch line?

In the Wikipedia entry for the Bittern Line this is said.

The line is also used by freight trains which are operated by GB Railfreight. Some trains carry gas condensate from a terminal at North Walsham to Harwich International Port.

The rail spur could have four main uses.

• Taking passengers to and from Mundesley-on-Sea and Bacton.
• Collecting gas condensate from the Bacton gas terminal.
• Collecting hydrogen from the Bacton gas terminal.
• Bringing in heavy equipment for the Bacton gas terminal.

It looks like another case of one of Dr. Beeching’s closures coming back to take a large chunk out of rail efficiency.

Claire Coutinho And Robert Habeck’s Tete-a-Tete

I wrote about their meeting in Downing Street in UK And Germany Boost Offshore Renewables Ties.

• Did Habeck run the RWE/Vattenfall deal past Coutinho to see it was acceptable to the UK Government?
• Did Coutinho lobby for SeAH to get the contract for the monopile foundations for the Norfolk Zone wind farms?
• Did Coutinho have a word for other British suppliers like iTMPower.

Note.

1. I think we’d have heard and/or the deal wouldn’t have happened, if there had been any objections to it from the UK Government.
2. In SeAH To Deliver Monopiles For Vattenfall’s 2.8 GW Norfolk Vanguard Offshore Wind Project, I detailed how SeAH have got the important first contract they needed.

So it appears so far so good.

Rackheath Station And Eco-Town

According to the Wikipedia entry for the Bittern Line, there are also plans for a new station at Rackheath to serve a new eco-town.

This is said.

A new station is proposed as part of the Rackheath eco-town. The building of the town may also mean a short freight spur being built to transport fuel to fire an on-site power station. The plans for the settlement received approval from the government in 2009.

The eco-town has a Wikipedia entry, which has a large map and a lot of useful information.

But the development does seem to have been ensnared in the planning process by the Norfolk Nimbys.

The Wikipedia entry for the Rackheath eco-town says this about the rail arrangements for the new development.

The current rail service does not allow room for an extra station to be added to the line, due to the length of single track along the line and the current signalling network. The current service at Salhouse is only hourly during peak hours and two-hourly during off-peak hours, as not all trains are able to stop due to these problems. Fitting additional trains to this very tight network would not be possible without disrupting the entire network, as the length of the service would increase, missing the connections to the mainline services. This would mean that a new 15-minute shuttle service between Norwich and Rackheath would have to be created; however, this would interrupt the main service and cause additional platforming problems. Finding extra trains to run this service and finding extra space on the platforms at Norwich railway station to house these extra trains poses additional problems, as during peak hours all platforms are currently used.

In addition, the plans to the site show that both the existing and the new rail station, which is being built 300m away from the existing station, will remain open.

. As the trains cannot stop at both stations, changing between the two services would be difficult and confusing, as this would involve changing stations.

I feel that this eco-town is unlikely to go ahead.

Did RWE Buy Vattenfall’s Norfolk Zone To Create Green Hydrogen For Europe?

Consider.

• Vattenfall’s Norfolk Zone is a 4.2 GW group of wind farms, which have all the requisite permissions and are shovel ready.
• Bacton Gas terminal has gas pipelines to Europe.
• Sizewell’s nuclear power stations will add security of supply.
• Extra wind farms could be added to the Norfolk Zone.
• Europe and especially Germany has a massive need for zero-carbon energy.

The only extra infrastructure needing to be built is the giant electrolyser.

I wouldn’t be surprised if RWE built a large electrolyser to supply Europe with hydrogen.

 

 

 

December 23, 2023 - Posted by AnonW | Energy, Hydrogen | 3D Concrete Printing, Bacton Gas Terminal, Beeching, Belgium, Eco-Town, Great Yarmouth, Housing, Hydrogen Blend, ICI, Interconnectors, iTM Power, Norfolk, Norfolk Boreas Wind Farm, Norfolk Vanguard Wind Farm, Nuclear Power, Offshore Wind Power, Port Of Great Yarmouth, RWE, Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station, Sizewell C Nuclear Power Station, STORE Consortium, Suffolk, The Netherlands, Vattenfall, Wind Power