The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) has prequalified a total of seven companies and consortia to participate in the tender of Denmark’s largest offshore wind farm, the 600MW Kriegers Flak in the Baltic Sea.

The Danish Energy Agency said all but one of the bidders that had made the penultimate cut earlier this month are now in the running for the Baltic Sea project.

Local outfit Dong is facing competition from Scandinavian rivals Vattenfall and a joint venture of Statoil and Eon Denmark.

Danish company European Energy is working with Boralex on its bid :

“We have the highest number of prequalified tenderers ever in Danish wind history. I both hope and believe that the great competition for winning the Kriegers Flak tender will lead to the best possible price for the benefit of Danish electricity consumers”, said the Danish Minister for Energy, Utilities and Climate Lars Christian Lilleholt.

The DEA will implement the tender over the next year. The decision of the winner is expected to be published in December 2016.

Dong Energy is to construct the 660MW Walney 3 offshore wind farm after making a final investment decision in the Round 2.5 wind farm off northwest England.

The wind farm is an extension of the existing 367MW Walney 1 and Walney 2 wind farms, which Dong Energy owns a 50.1% stake.

The Danish company said it has secured all necessary consents from authorities and has signed the majority of contracts to supply and build the project, which will be the world’s biggest offshore wind farm once complete.

The project will boast two different turbines in two phases: 40 8MW turbines from MHI Vestas Offshore Wind and 47 Siemens 7MW offshore turbines.

Siemens has confirmed the order is the first for its new 7MW machine, each which will have a rotor diameter of 154 meters.

Walney 3 is expected to be fully commissioned in 2018 and will be constructed and operated under the UK’s FID-enabling regime with a fixed price for the first 15 years of production.

Dong executive vice president Samuel Leupold said:

“Walney Extension will deliver clean electricity to more than 460,000 UK homes and I’m very pleased that we can now start construction of what will be the world’s biggest offshore wind farm when completed. Building this offshore wind farm will bring us significantly closer to realising our strategy of having 6.5GW of installed capacity online by 2020.”

Then Siemens offshore chief executive Michael Hannibal added:

“This marks the first order for the innovative Siemens 7MW wind turbine. We introduced this upgraded version of our proven 6MW model into the market only last March, and today we are proud to announce that Dong has chosen our new flagship offshore turbine. Our 7MW turbine will leverage the energy output of the Walney 3 East offshore wind farm and contribute significantly to lowering the cost of offshore wind power.”

Norwegian utility Statkraft suffered a net loss in the third quarter when compared to a year earlier amid record low energy prices in the Nordic region and adverse currency effects.

The company made a loss of Nkr39m (€4.2m), down from a profit of Nkr41m (€4.4m) in the same period in 2014. Operating profit before depreciation fell to Nkr11m (€1.2m) down from Nkr23m (€2.5m).

The big fall in prices means Statkraft has decided to reduce the production from its Norwegian hydropower assets.

Total power production fell by 1.1TWh compared to the same period last year.

The company said that a 58% fall in Nordic power prices from €31.8/MWh in the third quarter of 2014 to just €13.4/MWh.

Negative currency effects due to the weak level of the Norwegian Kroner also contributed to the quarterly loss, reducing profit by Nkr52m (€5.5m). There was Nkr1bn (€107m) of equity injected into the company.

Statkraft chief executive Christian Rynning-Tønnesen said: “We have experienced the lowest power prices in the Nordics in 15 years and have therefore held back water in order to produce more electricity when demand and prices are expected to be higher.”

The company is researching a revised 1000MW wind power project in Norway and has recently completed a 172MW hydropower plant in Peru and has started work on constructing the 36MW Andershaw wind farm in the UK.

United Utilities is to build a £3.5m floating solar power system on the Godley reservoir in Hyde in Manchester.
The development will consist of 12,000 solar panels and cover an area of 45,500 square metres. It will be the second biggest floating solar plant in the world when complete, after one located in Japan.

The company aims to complete the installation, test it and bring it into operation before Christmas 2015.
Once complete, the 12-week project will provide United Utilities with 2.7GWh per year of electricity.

United Utilities head of renewable energy Chris Stubbs said: “We have a target to generate 35% of our power requirements by 2020 and this project will make a significant contribution to that aim. As part of United Utilities’ energy strategy to generate more power we identified the Godley reservoir as a suitable site to install a floating solar array to provide the water treatment works with approximately 33% of its energy requirements.”

He also added :

“While floating solar has been deployed elsewhere around the world, most notably in Japan, it is a new technology to the UK. Installations such as the Godley solar scheme will help us to keep energy costs and water customers’ bills low.”

MHI Vestas has confirmed that it is to supply Nobelwind with 165MW for the Belwind 2 offshore wind project in Belgium.

The deal involves delivery of 50 V112 3.3MW turbines and a 15-year full scope service agreement.

The units will be delivered in 2016. Commissioning will take place the following year.

The developer reached financial close on the project last week, clearing the way for confirmation of the long-standing deal with MHI Vestas.

TenneT is set to start construction this week on the onshore converter substation for the 900MW Borwin 3 offshore wind farm in Emden/Ost in the German state of Lower Saxony.

A transformer will be brought to the site by the end of next year, while commissioning of the converter station is slated for late summer 2017.

Work started in March on burying a 30km DC onshore cable from Hamswehrum near Emden to the planned onshore substation in Emden/Ost.

Groundwork will take place along the 30km cable oute and last until the early summer of 2016. The cable will be buried in sections of 1150 metres and be connected via sockets.

The first parts of the offshore cable were buried in September.

Drydocks World started steel cutting in late September in Dubai for the offshore platform Borwin gamma, on behalf of the consortium of Siemens and Petrofac.

TenneT awarded the contract last year to Siemens to supply HVDC transmission technology for the grid link together with Petrofac, which is handling construction and installation of the offshore platform.

Borwin 3 is slated to be fully commissioned in the third quarter of 2019.

The UK government consultation on whether “devastating” cuts to the Feed in Tariff should go ahead will close today.

Industry has urged the renewable sector to “make its voice heard” if it hasn’t already done so before the 11.45pm deadline tonight (Friday, October 23).

Greenpeace policy director Doug Parr said: “If this goes ahead the impact will be devastating, but right now, we’ve got a chance to push back.” He also added :

“The government cannot pretend cuts to subsidies for the nascent solar industry are necessary to save families money whilst throwing much more money at well-established technologies. The timing couldn’t be worse as the young and potentially booming solar industry is on track to go subsidy free but if these cuts happen, it will be too sudden, too soon and too dramatic and is likely to irrevocably damage the domestic solar industry losing thousands of jobs and millions in investment.”

For its part, the UK government said it wants to maximise value for money to British electricity bill payers by “reducing FiT expenses”. Last September, the U.K. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd, explained that the government had “overspent” on subsidies, pointing to the runaway success of solar under the FIT :

“Take-up has been so great that we expect to achieve our ambition (of supporting 750,000 installations by 2020) by the end of this year. But this has meant that the overall cost of the scheme has also exceeded expectations.”

DNV GL has been joined by seven companies, including ExxonMobil and Statoil, to examine the potential of floating wind turbines to power offshore petroleum installations.

DNV GL said initial studies have shown that a standalone wind-powered water-injection system could become cost competitive for various types of applications.

In particular, for water injection far from the production platform and when costly retrofitting is not an option.
In order to develop the concept futher, DNV GL launched the WIN WIN joint industry partnership, which also includes ENI Norge, Nexen Petroleum UK, VNG, PG Flow Solutions, and ORE Catapult.

DNV GL said the technical concept is being developed and the technical feasibility assessed in detail :
“Two of the main challenges being addressed are the off-grid operation of the system and the reservoir’s response to variable injection rates”, the company said.

DNV GL segment leader – floating wind turbines Johan Sandberg said: “Once the technical hurdles are cleared, the concept’s economic viability will be analysed using relevant and realistic cases provided by the JIP partners. Then added :

“Initial results are promising, and with the operators on board we are able to test the concept on real cases.
In parallel with finalizing the initial technical and economic assessment of the concept, we are now thinking about the next steps, both looking for other relevant applications of the system.”

Statoil renewables research group manager Hanne Wigum said: “The overall concept needs maturing up to a point where it can be considered a viable option in field development studies.”

Eon and the UK Green Investment Bank have appointed cable and pipeline system installation specialist VolkerInfra to carry out onshore works for the 400MW Rampion offshore wind farm, which is being built 13km off the Sussex coast.

The job will comprise of onshore major horizontal directional drills – under the A27, a railway crossing, the A283 and River Adur – and one landfall to connect the onshore and offshore cables when installed.
VolkerInfra will start the work later this year and is set to have it completed by the second quarter of 2016.

VolkerInfra managing director Jonathon Humphries said: “We are delighted to be appointed for the Rampion project and look forward to safely delivering the works in collaboration with our VolkerWessels sister companies Visser & Smit Hanab and VBMS.”

Spanish Iberdrola has signed an agreement with the Young Farmers’ Agricultural Association (ASAJA) in Madrid to increase generation and use of solar photovoltaic energy in the agricultural sector.

The firms will jointly boost the Smart Solar Iberdrola service to allow customers to generate their own energy for consumption using solar photovoltaic technology.

The partners will conduct feasibility tests to boost the technology for the facilities, members, customers, and other points of supply represented by ASAJA, whose members include direct farm workers, with owners and lease-holders, and also families members related to farm activities.

A follow-up committee will be set up for the purpose, which will also deliver, publicise and carry out marketing for the service in this sector.

Smart Solar is a retail product by Iberdrola, which offers design, assembly and commissioning of a fully customised solar installation, besides delivering finance, advice, comprehensive maintenance, management and supervision of the facilities through web tools and innovative applications.

Iberdrola announced in February its intentions to invest for renewable energy sector in Scotland and the UK.

ASAJA is a professional agricultural organisation in the country, which is comprised of 200,000 members.