Vattenfall has started construction of the Kentish Flats Extension, which is the only offshore wind farm being built in UK this year.

Located off the Kent coast, the extension project is expected to cost more than £150m.

It will involve installation of 15 wind turbines at 8km distance from the coast.

The project is an extension of the 90MW Kentish Flats offshore wind facility, which has been operating since September 2005.

Vattenfall project director for Kentish Flats Extension Matthew Green said: “A number of large vessels will be offshore Herne Bay and Whitstable this summer as we add 15 turbines to the existing 30 at Kentish Flats.

“It doesn’t get much tougher than this: piling foundations 30m into the seabed; installing 139.6m-tall turbines weighing 600t over 8km off the coast; and, completing on schedule and to budget with, most importantly, maximum emphasis on safety.”

First power from the 49.5MW scheme is expected to be available later in the year.

Permission for extending the capacity of the existing farm was received in February 2013.

Once operational, the extended offshore wind development will be able to meet the power requirements of nearly 35,000 UK households.

Vattenfall UK country manager Piers Guy said: “It’s important the UK pipeline keeps delivering, and Kentish Flats Extension does that in a modest way, so that British suppliers can maintain a foothold in the sector and help capture the significant economic opportunities that go with it.”

Power Technology

Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board (ESB) has formed a development partnership with Coriolis Energy to set up nine wind power projects in the UK.

Projected power generation capacity of the developments will be up to 400MW. The firms are likely to spend approximately £600m on the proposed projects.

First of the nine onshore wind energy facilities is expected to be commissioned by 2019.

Once all the projects are operational, they will meet the power requirements of 225,000 households in the country.

ESB chief executive Pat O’Doherty said: “ESB’s partnership with Coriolis Energy confirms the company’s continuing commitment to renewable electricity generation and further reducing the carbon mix in our portfolio.

“This partnership gives us an opportunity to increase our presence and capability in onshore wind in the UK through high-quality projects.”

Coriolis Energy managing director David Murray said: “This new partnership with ESB underlines Coriolis Energy’s position as one of the UK’s leading independent onshore wind developers.

“ESB’s scale, capabilities and desire to build a substantial onshore wind portfolio in the UK make them an ideal long term partner, both for us and our project landowners.

“We look forward to successfully completing the development of our existing project pipeline with them and using this as a platform for progressing further opportunities as the market continues to develop.”

Though most of the projects are likely to be built in Scotland, the firms will also explore new sites for onshore wind power developments throughout the UK.

Power-Technology.

Apple is looking to invest more than €400m directly to fund at least six renewable energy projects in Ireland.

The firm has invited partnership proposals from green energy developers to set up multiple new projects, with each having a power generation capacity of up to 50MW, reports The Irish Times.

Apple has planned the projects to meet the energy requirements of its proposed €850m data centre at Athenry in Galway County, Ireland.

Energy requirements of the data centre, which will support Apple’s services including iTunes, Maps and Siri, is expected to be more than 300MW.

The firm has, however, not specified the source from which the renewable energy for the centre will be derived. Wind farm developers are more likely to be considered for the development.

Apple might sign up for power purchase agreements for the Galway facility, according to a tender on Ariba.com. The firm will consider buying those assets as well, after they become operational.

The power purchase agreements, if any, will cover the duration of 20 years, the Irish daily reported.

The firm is seeking projects from within the Republic of Ireland and wants them to be commissioned by 2017 or 2018. Proximity of the proposed projects to the data centre will be considered as a positive aspect.

Power-Technology

A new report released today (29 April) has revealed that the UK’s onshore wind industry contributed £906m to the UK economy last year, of which almost 30% directly benefits local areas.

The report, undertaken by BiGGAR Economics for RenewableUK, shows the industry’s contribution to the UK economy is increasing, having risen by 65% (£358mn) since 2012. It also shows that each megawatt of installed onshore wind has brought more than £2m to the UK over its lifetime, of which 69% is remaining in the UK.

The figures also reveal the increasing commitment by onshore developers to ensure local areas benefit from development, as 27% of the economic benefits of onshore wind are enjoyed in the local area around each project.

Commenting on the report’s findings, RenewableUK’s chief executive Maria McCaffery said: “The British onshore wind energy industry is adding over £900 million a year to the national economy, so the benefits to the UK are clear to see.

“This report also shows that £7 of every £10 spent on onshore wind projects is invested here in the UK. Onshore wind powers local economies, bringing £199m of investment into the local communities that host wind farms and creating jobs across the supply chain.”

The report shows that almost half of the total spend to develop an onshore wind farm is retained in the region in which a wind farm is located (48%), rising from 36% during the two-year construction stage to 58% during operation and maintenance.

Halt the spread

McCaffrey added: “Onshore wind is already the lowest cost of all low carbon options and is set to become the least cost form of all electricity within the next five years. Despite these facts, onshore wind projects are under threat from misguided Tory and UKIP policies aimed at stifling their development, blatantly disregarding rational economic evidence and consistently high levels of public support.”

The Conservatives confirmed in their election manifesto earlier this month their controversial plans to effectively halt the onshore wind industry by ending subsidies and changing the planning system. David Cameron’s party cited a ‘failure to win public support’ as one of the reasons for the decision.

“Renewable UK have produced a very useful report, for the first time putting hard numbers on the local benefits that wind energy brings,” Ecotricity founder Dale Vince said: “This shows clearly that not only is wind power decentralised in terms of its location and connection to the grid, but its economic benefits are decentralised, too – they are shared in a way that we just don’t see in non-renewable technologies.”

“We won’t see fracking, for example, provide anything like 27% of its economic benefits to local communities. It’s another one of the wonderful things that wind energy brings – couple this with polls consistently showing its popularity among British people, and you have to wonder why on earth the Conservatives are intent on ending it.”

edie.net

German manufacturer Siemens has completed the installation of SylWin1 grid connection in the North Sea and handed it over to network operator TenneT.

The now-operational link is located at nearly 70km from the west of Sylt island in Germany. It will allow transmission of up to 864MW of renewable energy.

The link connects three offshore wind facilities, Butendiek, DanTysk and Sandbank, which have been equipped with 232 Siemens wind turbines in total and have a generation capacity of 288MW each.

More than 100 turbines have already been connected to the grid with work for the others in progress.

The offshore platform transmits renewable energy via a 200km subsea and underground cable link to the land-based station Büttel in Germany.

The transmission capacity of SylWin1 can meet the energy requirements of more than one million households.

Siemens has implemented high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) technology for the connection, which is claimed to be ‘world’s most powerful grid connection to date’.

TenneT managing board member Lex Hartman said: “2015 is a special milestone year for TenneT, as we will be completing further offshore grid connections by the end of the year, meaning that all in all we will have implemented a capacity of more than 5,000MW, or more than two-thirds of the offshore expansion goal set by the Federal German Government by then.”

Siemens has won five North Sea grid connection projects by TenneT, three of which have been turned operational this year. These are BorWin2 (800MW), HelWin1 (576MW) and SylWin1 (864MW).

The other two projects to be set up by the German firm are HelWin2 (690 MW) and BorWin3 (900 MW).

Power-Technology.

German power manufacturer Siemens has started commissioning converter stations for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission link between France and Spain.

Scheduled to be fully commissioned by the middle of this year, the link will increase the energy-exchange capacity between the two European nations by 100%, thereby increasing its reliability. Presently, 1,400MW of power is being transmitted between France and Spain.

The new link will also enable integration of renewable energy sources without endangering the stability of the grid, Siemens said.

Siemens Energy Management Division Transmission Solutions CEO Tim Dawidowsky said: “As a link between France and Spain, this HVDC transmission project can serve as an excellent model. It is a forward-looking approach that shows how bottlenecks in the transmission grids throughout Europe can gradually be eliminated.

“With our HVDC system, currently worldwide the most powerful of its kind, we have made a significant contribution to these efforts.”

The German firm had also manufactured the converter stations for the link, which connects Baixas, west of Perpignan, France, and Santa Llogaia, south-west of Figueras, Spain. The system has a transmission capacity of 2,000MW in both directions with the power stations at two ends located nearly 65km away.

Siemens had won the HVDC link construction contract from Inelfe (Interconnexion Electrique France Espagne), a project joint venture between the grid operators Réseau de Transport d’Electricité (RTE), Paris, and Red Eléctrica de Espana (REE), Madrid.

The project will involve an investment of nearly $700m, Siemens said.

John Daly has been appointed as general manager of Dublin Waste to Energy, which is the company in charge of a €500m public private partnership (PPP) project to build a waste-to-energy facility in Poolbeg, Dublin.

Work started on the 600,000 tonne facility late last year and operations are targeted for late 2017.

When complete, the facility will generate clean energy to supply 80,000 homes, reducing Ireland’s reliance on imported fossil fuel, and has also been designed with technology and infrastructure to provide enough heat to meet the equivalent needs of over 50,000 homes.

Dublin Waste to Energy is owned by US sustainable waste and energy solutions provider Covanta and the PPP is with Dublin City Council.

Daly moves to Covanta from Bord na Mona, where he was head of its resource recovery unit since 2013, responsible for overseeing the commercial and domestic waste management business across seven sites in the Republic of Ireland.

He previously held positions with Kingspan Environmental & Renewables as divisional operations director, Onyx Ireland (Veolia Group) as managing director. He has also served as deputy chairman of the Irish Waste Management Association.

“This is a landmark development in state-of-the-art waste management for the Dublin region, and for Ireland,” said Daly.

“The project will deliver a long-term sustainable waste management solution which will divert post-recycled waste from landfills, generate renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gases, all while providing a meaningful boost to the economy.”

He also stressed the importance of developing positive relations with the local community in the Sandymount, Ringsend and Irishtown areas, and said he would work steadfastly to maintain an accountable and transparent relationship with local residents and other stakeholders.

Norwegian Havgul Clean Energy will merge with Swedish Triventus Wind Power to form a new merged entity, Havgul Nordic, which will have 1.55GW of onshore and offshore wind developments in the pipeline.

The two wind power developers have planned for an estimated €3.2bn investment for the projects, which are expected to be set up across Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Approximately 15 projects have been planned by the new firm, out of which seven will be constructed in Sweden with a combined generation capacity of 504MW.

Five projects amounting to 865MW of renewable energy have been planned for Norway, while three Finnish projects are likely to supply 185MW.

The 350MW Havsul 1 offshore facility and 200MW Tonstad wind farm, both in Norway, are part of the proposed pipeline.

The merged entity is expected to ‘act like a single platform for investors to access a broad range of wind projects across three markets, combining onshore and offshore in some of the highest capacity factors available in Europe’, reports Recharge News.

Havgul Nordic CEO Harald Dirdal was quoted by the news website as saying: “The Norwegian and Swedish Governments have recently increased their renewable energy targets and we expect to be well positioned to exploit this highly positive regulatory driver in the years ahead.”

Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed yet. The merger is likely to be completed by May this year.

RWE plans to invest nearly €1bn between 2015 and 2017 to grow its renewable energy portfolio.

The investment by the German utility-developer will be majorly earmarked for offshore wind developments.

RWE chief executive Peter Terium was cited by reNEWS as saying that the renewable sector is “a major technology whose high load factor helps ensure grid stability”.

As well as offshore wind, the company will also vouch for onshore wind developments especially across Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Poland.

The firm revealed its next year plans along with its 2014 fiscal results. RWE had a net profit of €1.7bn last year, it said.

Though it met its 2014 targets, RWE wants to be more cautious with its expenses in the future, since it had suffered losses with extra expenses at a German and a UK offshore-wind projects.

The firm spent €1bn for the renewable energy sector in 2014 alone.

RWE, however, expects further declines to profitability from its conventional power generating capacity in the current year.

Peter Terium was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying: “The crisis in conventional electricity generation will continue to have a significant impact on RWE’s earnings…therefore we will probably not succeed in keeping the operating result at the level recorded in 2014.”

Dublin-headquartered Mainstream Renewable Power has secured a 15-year contract from the UK National Grid for a 450-megawatt Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm in the Outer Fourth Estuary in the North Sea.