ScottishPower Renewables has submitted plans to build a 1.2GW offshore wind farm off the coast of Suffolk, after the government yesterday announced it would continue to provide support for new projects over the course of this parliament.

The project called East Anglia THREE will spread across a 305km² area in the southern North Sea, off the coast of Suffolk in East Anglia.

It will feature up to 172 wind turbines and generate enough energy to meet the power needs of more than 850,000 homes.

The project will be considered by the Planning Inspectorate and if approved, would start construction in 2021, with first power coming in 2023.

The UK Government said that technical development has helped pare the costs of contracts for offshore wind come by at least 20% in the last two years, but it is still expensive.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd explained yesterday :

“Further support will be strictly conditional on the cost reductions we have seen already accelerating. The technology needs to move quickly to cost competitiveness.”

East Anglia THREE was proposed to be developed in a 50/50 joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall.

But in August 2015, both the parties agreed to develop offshore windfarm projects independently within the “East Anglia Zone”.

Snowdonia Pumped Hydro has submitted an application to the Planning Inspectorate to build the 99.9MW Glyn Rhonwy pumped hydro storage facility at near Llanberis.

The application, first reported in subscriber-only newsletter renews, is for a Development Consent Order.

The £160m scheme (€228m), which already has planning permission from local authority Gwynedd Council at an output of 49.9MW, would re-purpose two abandoned slate quarries.

It is the first of a series of schemes that SPH parent company QBC intends to develop throughout the UK.

SPH plans to double the output of the Glyn Rhonwy facility by increasing the capacity of the underground turbines and associated equipment. In every other respect the revised scheme would be identical to that already granted planning permission by Gwynedd Council.

The company said the higher output would enable the Glyn Rhonwy facility to play a larger role in smoothing out the intermittency of renewables such as wind by capturing surplus electricity and releasing it when demand is high and renewables output is low.

Glyn Rhonwy facility would be expected to have an operational life of around 125 years and support up to 30 full time local jobs.

France’s Port of Cherbourg is on track to complete a 100-hectare offshore wind and marine energy industrial and logistics hub by the end of next year, according to managing body Ports of Normandy Authority.

In addition to the 44-hectare area of port land already available alongside a new heavy-load quay completed in spring 2015, 39 hectares of port land has been under construction since March.

A further 17-hectare business area is also under development.

New access roads and railway lines for the €100m project are due to be completed by the end of the year, said Ports of Normandy Authority.

The Eolien Maritime France consortium, which comprises EDF Energies Nouvelles, Dong and WPD Offshore, has chosen Cherbourg for its assembly hub for the Courseulles and Fécamp offshore wind farms.

Offshore wind energy could meet 35% of the UK’s electricity demand by 2030 and support 50,000 skilled jobs, according to a new Offshore Wind Vision document released today.

The document is being launched as part of Offshore Wind Week (16–20 November), a cross-sector initiative involving many responsible for licensing, developing, manufacturing, constructing and operating offshore wind farms in the UK.

The document main points are:

-Offshore wind is getting cheaper with the level of subsidy dropping by 38% and is on track to be competitive with other new generation sources by the mid-2020s.

-Offshore wind has become the most productive of all the renewable technologies, and this improvement is set to continue, with the newest wind farms are already operating at load factors of up to 50%.

-The sector is attracting global investment, with over £9.5bn (€13.5bn) coming from investors since 2010 encouraged by stable and predictable regulatory regimes for renewable energy.

-Offshore wind already provides employment for 13,000 people and with continued deployment that figure could grow to 50,000 by 2030 across development, supply chain, construction and operational roles.

Offshore Wind Industry Council co-chair Benj Sykes commented:

“It is only 15 years since the first UK offshore wind farm – just two 2MW turbines – began operating. Since then the technology has matured rapidly to the point where the UK leads the world in deployment and could readily build 30 gigawatts of capacity by 2030, enough to meet 35% of UK demand.”

GE has taken the wraps off a new 3.4MW turbine designed to “address the complexities” of European wind conditions.

The announcement has been unveiled today at the EWEA 2015 event in Paris.

The US company will produce the machine in either 130 or 137 metre rotors and, together with the already unveiled 3.2-130.

GE said it will result in its “most powerful family of onshore wind turbines to date”.

Five tower options are available, with hub heights ranging from 85 to 155 metres, putting tips well above 200 metres in the largest configuration. All models feature the modular hardware and software analytics of GE’s Digital Wind Farm.

Despite the technology builds on the existing 2.5 platform, it offers “improved load management systems, enhanced control features and more efficient drive-train technology”, the company said.

Royal Boskalis Westminster’s order book fell 6.1% in the third quarter of 2015 to €2.8bn, according to the company’s latest results.

The company said its operating profit was lower than quarterly result achieved in the first half of the year and he same period last year.

However, this was in line with expectations because of the first six months of the year was characterized by a “high fleet utilization and exceptionally good project margins”.

Operating profit was also lower than the level achieved in the third quarter of last year which was positively impacted by substantial settlement results on old dredging projects.

Boskalis said market conditions remain challenging, particularly in the capacity-driven segments in the offshore energy market, “resulting in pressure on work volumes and pricing”.

Offshore energy experienced a “lower utilization of heavy transport vessels” and the sector posted lower revenue and results compared with past quarters :

“The nature of our activities means that we are largely late-cyclical in the offshore segment”, Boskalis commented.

It added that although 2015 will yield an overall net profit for the company in line with expectations this will be below the record level in 2014 €490m.

British power developer Lightsource Renewable Energy (LRE) has signed a deal to invest £2bn (€2.8bn) for setting up solar plants for up to 3GW of power generation in India.

The agreement will be extending over a five year period and is a part of commercial deals signed between India and the UK during the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the country last week.

Lightsource chief executive Nick Boyle commented :

“The government has ambitious plans to electrify India and Lightsource will contribute significantly to that goal. India will be a key market for Lightsource in the future.”

The commercial agreements have a cumulative worth of £9bn (€12.7bn) and cover multiple sectors, including insurance services, finance, healthcare and energy.

Lightsource’s commitment is expected to generate £42m (€59m) in revenue in the country, in addition to creating around 300 job opportunities.

UK-listed Indian firm OPG Power Ventures will also be investing around £2.9bn (€4.1bn) in the Asian country to set up another 4.2GW of new power projects.

OPG supported projects will include 1GW of solar farms and 3.2GW of thermal and renewable energy projects in Tamil Nadu, a state of India.

Other elements of the cooperation include the UK Climate Investments joint venture with the Green Investment Bank, which will invest up to £200m (€283m) in renewable energy and energy efficiency in India and Africa.

Irish renewables are responsible for a record low in the carbon content of electricity generation, new data reveals.

According to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), renewable electricity helped Ireland avoid 2.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2014.

The figures, released today, show that the carbon intensity of electricity generation fell to a record low of 457 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of electrical output, half the level in 1990.

Without renewables, the SEAI’s projects shows that power generation emissions would have been 23% higher.

SEAI chief executive Brian Motherway said the data was “extremely positive” for the country :

“This comes ahead of an international climate change agreement at COP21 that will put the world on track to a low-emission, climate resilient and sustainable future.”

Then he added :

“We can see how Ireland is moving to a low-carbon economy with clean and renewable energy increasingly used to provide electricity in our homes and businesses.”

On the back of the data, the SEAI says that renewables are now one of the single biggest contributors to carbon dioxide emission reductions in Ireland.

Renewable electricity generation – led by onshore wind but including hydro, landfill gas, biomass and biogas – accounted for 22.7% of gross electricity consumption during the year.

The SEAI has also revealed that the growth in renewables resulted in a €250 million saving on fossil fuel imports in 2014.

EDF Energy’s renewable arm has bought the Dorenell onshore wind farm project in Scotland which could provide electricity for up to 138,000 homes, the company said on Thursday.

The plant could generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity and is expected to begin operation in 2018 at a bid price of £82.50 per megawatt-hour.

EDF Energy, the British subsidiary of French utility EDF, will develop and construct the project alongside renewable energy company Infinergy which was previously developing the project, EDF Energy said in a statement.

EDF Energy chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said:

“Today’s announcement, just weeks before the international conference on climate change in Paris, confirms EDF Energy’s commitment to lead in UK investment in low carbon electricity. That means investment in wind and nuclear electricity generation with an increasing focus on the development of Scottish renewables.”

For his part, Infinergy managing director Esbjorn Wilmar commented :

“Our focus now is on bringing new technology through the planning process to make Dorenell the best wind farm it can be, maximising output at the site which will make an extremely important contribution to the renewable energy targets set by the Scottish government as part of policy to ensure greater diversity and security of electricity supplies.”

Dorenell, which will be built in the heart of whisky country near Dufftown in Moray, was consented in 2011 as a 177MW project featuring 59 turbines of 3MW each. The original developer is awaiting ministerial consent for a revised 60-unit layout featuring up to 3.3MW hardware.

Swedish operator Vattenfall has sold 88 wind turbines in Denmark to Green Power Partners for an undisclosed sum.

The turbines come from 19 wind farms on Jutland and have a total capacity of 65MW. Vattenfall says the sale comprises farms that do not fit its strategy to focus on larger wind power projects :

“The size of these wind farms does not match Vattenfall’s strategic direction, which is why we decided to sell them. We can now concentrate on further developing and strengthening our position in Denmark in the sector of large-scale onshore and offshore wind power”, said Martin Reinholdsson, Vice President of Vattenfall Generation.

One of the company’s large onshore developments in Denmark is the modernisation of the Klim wind farm in North-West Jutland that is almost complete now. It involves the replacement of 35 older turbines by 22 “much more efficient” ones.

At the same time, Vattenfall has emerged as one of the seven candidates to build the 600-MW Kriegers Flak offshore wind park in Danish waters. It is also working on the 400-MW Horns Rev 3 wind farm off the west coast of Jutland.