Ocean Winds Secures Third Celtic Sea Floating Wind Site
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Ocean Winds has secured the third floating offshore wind site in the Celtic Sea, offered through the Crown Estate’s Round 5 auction earlier this year. The developer is joining Equinor and the Gwynt Glas joint venture, which were awarded rights for two of the three sites offered in Round 5 in June.
This paragraph outlines Ocean Winds’s deal.
On 19 November, the Crown Estate said that Ocean Winds was set to be awarded the rights for a third floating offshore wind site in the Celtic Sea.
There would now appear to be three Celtic Winds deals for wind farms.
- Gwynt Glas – 1.5 GW
- Ocean Winds – 1.5 GW
- Equinor – 1.5 GW
Note.
- 4.5 GW will be able to power a good proportion of South Wales and the South-West peninsular.
- In Gwynt Glas And South Wales Ports Combine Strength In Preparation For Multi-Billion Floating Wind Industry, I talk about partnerships between the wind farms and the ports.
- If you sign up for a large wind farm from the Crown Estate, do you get to have afternoon tea with Charles and Camilla in the garden at Highgrove or even Buckingham Palace?
This map of the wind farms is available from download from this page on the Crown Estate web site.
Note.
- Gwynt Glas is in green.
- Ocean Winds is in blue.
- Equinor is in mauve.
- The white dot to the East of the wind farms is Lundy Island.
This triple wind farm is certainly well-placed to supply power to Cornwall, Devon and South Wales.
Moray West First UK Round 4 Offshore Wind Project To Reach Financial Close
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Moray West Offshore Wind Farm, owned by Ocean Winds and minority shareholder Ignitis Group, has secured GBP 2 billion of non-recourse project finance and reached financial close, the developers announced on 21 April and said this was the first project from the UK’s Contract for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 4 to reach this milestone.
This is the first paragraph.
The construction work for the wind farm has already started, with this phase of the project set to create 1,000 direct jobs in the UK. With financial close in place, the project will now move to secure the remaining elements of supply chain activity in preparation for offshore installation works later this year which will be fully completed by 2025, when the 882 MW Moray West is scheduled to be fully operational.
That sounds good for Scotland and electricity users in the UK.
But this paragraph is probably the most important.
According to its developers, the 882 MW offshore wind farm is the first in the UK to rely in majority on corporate power purchase agreements (CPPAs) for the commercialisation of its output. CPPAs were signed with long-term strategic partners, for more than 50 per cent of the project’s output, enabling the rapid progress of the project. The vital CPPAs were originated in partnership with ENGIE and represent the largest contracts of their kind implemented in the UK market to date, Ocean Winds said in a press release.
There’s not much point in making something that nobody wants to buy at the price you need for a profitable sale.
But with all those CPPAs, one of which is with Google, Moray West wind farm appears to be on his way.
The Caledonia Wind Farm
Another of the ScotWind wind farms, that I described in ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations, has been given a name and a web site.
This map shows the various ScotWind leases.
Note, that the numbers are Scotwind’s lease number in their documents.
9 is now Caledonia.
- It has grown from a 1,000 MW fixed foundation wind farm and is now 2,000 MW.
- A completion date of 2030 is now given.
The wind farm will be the fourth development in the area, after the 598 MW Beatrice, the 950 MW Moray East and the 882 MW Moray West wind farms. That is a total of nearly 4,500 MW.
Caledonia’s Unique Advantages
On the About Caledonia page on the Caledonia Wind Farm web site, there is a section called Caledonia’s Unique Advantages, which has four sections.
Water Depths
Caledonia’s water depths are 40 to 100 m. Three-quarters of the site is at depths that allow for fixed (rather than floating) foundations.
This means the majority of the site can be built using the same type of jacket foundations which Ocean Winds optimised at Moray East, seeing Caledonia implement a proven, low-risk, low-cost engineering solution.
Wind
The wind resource at Caledonia is proven through the experience of previous projects and is of a magnitude more usually associated with deeper waters, further from shore. This means Caledonia will benefit from an excellent wind resource, yielding a higher output at lower costs.
Distance from Shore
Caledonia is around 40km from shore and 70km from the nearest National Grid connection point. Beyond distances of approx 120km, DC technology becomes a necessity for subsea transmission. This means the additional costs associated with installing AC-DC convertors offshore and DC-AC convertors onshore can be avoided and the onshore substation will be smaller so will require less land and have a lesser impact on the surrounding environment.
Environment
The Moray Firth is the home of commercial-scale offshore wind generation in Scotland. Caledonia neighbours the Moray East, Moray West, and Beatrice sites, and Ocean Winds have had a presence here from the beginning of the area’s offshore wind development.
Conclusion
It does appear that if you do your planning well on projects like these, there are benefits to be reaped in terms of size, construction, capacity and financial returns.
Three Shetland ScotWind Projects Announced
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release on Crown Estate Scotland.
These three paragraphs outline how the leases were allocated.
Three projects will be offered seabed agreements for offshore wind projects following Crown Estate Scotland’s ScotWind clearing process.
The announcement comes as an offshore wind supply chain summit is held in Aberdeen today (22 August) with Sir Ian Wood, chaired by Michael Matheson MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Energy, and including a keynote address by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP.
Clearing saw the ‘NE1’ area east of Shetland made available for ScotWind applicants who met the required standards but who did not secure their chosen location earlier in the leasing process.
I think it was good idea to offer these leases to those bidders that failed to get a lease, the first time around, despite meeting the standards.
- Would it encourage bidders, if they knew that after the expense of setting up a bid, that if they failed, they could have another chance?
- It must also save the Scottish Government time and money checking out bidders.
- How many times have you interviewed several applicants for a job and then found jobs for some of those, that you didn’t choose for the original job?
Let’s hope the philosophy has generated some good extra contracts.
This map from Cross Estate Scotland shows all the contracts.
Note the three new leases numbered 18, 19 and 20 to the East of Shetland, in the North-East corner of the map.
Their details are as follows.
- 18 – Ocean Winds – 500 MW
- 19 – Mainstream Renewable Power – 1800 MW
- 20 – ESB Asset Development – 500 MW
Note.
All are floating wind farms.
- Ocean Winds is a Spanish renewable energy company that is developing the Moray West and Moray East wind farms.
- Mainstream Renewable Power appear to be a well-financed and ambitious company, 75 % owned by Aker.
- ESB Energy appear to be an experienced energy company owned by the Irish state, who operate several wind farms and Carrington gas-fired power station in the UK.
2.8 GW would appear to be a generous second helping.
Ocean Winds and Mainstream Renewable Power
This web page on the Ocean Winds web site, is entitled Ocean Winds Designated Preferred Bidder For Seabed Leases For 2.3 GW Of Floating Projects East Of Shetland, Scotland, contains several snippets of useful information.
- Crown Estate Scotland announced the result of ScotWind Leasing round clearing process, awarding Ocean Winds with two seabed leases for floating offshore wind projects: a 1.8 GW capacity site with partner Mainstream Renewable Power, and another 500 MW capacity site, east of the Shetland Islands.
- Ocean Winds’ international portfolio of projects now reaches 14.5 GW of gross capacity, including 6.1 GW in Scotland.
- Floating wind turbines for the two adjacent sites are confirmed, because of the water depth.
- The partners are committed to developing floating offshore wind on an industrial scale in Scotland, generating local jobs and opportunities in Scotland and the Shetland Islands.
- From the picture on the web page, it looks like WindFloat technology will be used.
- Ocean Winds developed the WindFloat Atlantic project.
Ocean Winds appear to want to go places.
The Shetland HVDC Connection
The Shetland HVDC Connection will connect Shetland to Scotland.
- It will be 160 miles long.
- It will have a capacity of 600 MW.
- It is estimated that it will cost more than £600 million.
- It will allow the 66MW Lerwick power station to close.
- It will be completed in 2024.
I have a feeling that all these numbers don’t add up to a sensible answer.
Consider.
- The three offshore wind farms can generate up to 2800 MW of green electricity.
- With a capacity factor of 50 %, an average of 1400 MW of electricity will be generated.
- The Viking onshore wind farm on Shetland could generate up to 450 MW.
- More wind farms are likely in and around Shetland.
- Lerwick power station can probably power most of the Shetland’s needs.
- Lerwick power station is likely to be closed soon.
- Sullum Voe Terminal has its own 100 MW gas-turbine power station.
- Load is balanced on Shetland by 3MWh of advanced lead-acid batteries.
- Lerwick has a district heating scheme.
If we assume that Shetland’s energy needs are of the order of a few hundred MW, it looks like at times the wind farms will be generating more electricity, than Shetland and the Shetland HVDC Connection can handle.
Various plans have suggested building electrolysers on Shetland to create hydrogen.
Conversion of excess electricity to hydrogen, would have the following advantages.
- The hydrogen could be used for local heavy transport and to replace diesel.
- Hydrogen could be used to fuel a gas turbine back-up power station, when needed.
- Hydrogen could be used for rocket fuel, if use of Shetland as a Spaceport for launching satellites takes off.
Any excess hydrogen could be exported to the rest of the UK or Europe.
The Anonymous Widower 