Canadian energy company Enbridge has acquired a 24.9% interest in the 400MW Rampion offshore wind farm, to be located 13 kilometres off the Sussex coast south of Brighton, England.

Enbridge will become a shareholders in Rampion Offshore Wind Limited, joining existing partners Eon, which will remain the controlling shareholder at 50.1%, and the UK Green Investment Bank.

The project received the final investment decision in May 2015, started construction in September and is expected to be fully operational in 2018.

Eon and Enbridge are already partners in the Magic Valley wind farm in Texas and the Wildcat wind farm in Indiana.

Eon Climate & Renewables chief operating officer Michael Lewis said:

“We are happy to strengthen our partnership with Enbridge as a reliable partner, who shares our approach of combining high class assets and safe operations. The company’s background in North American renewables and pipelines complements the expertise of the existing shareholder group. Our collective experience will help realise the successful construction and operation of the wind farm.”

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas made a net profit of €206m in the third quarter of 2015, up from €102m a year earlier, as the company saw the value of turbine orders rise by 50%.

Vestas’ firm and unconditional turbine orders tallied 1508MW worth €1.5bn in Q3, up from 1170MW and €1bn a year earlier. The company received turbine orders for 6275MW worth €5.8bn in the first nine months of 2015, a rise from 4290MW and €3.7bn last year.

The company said Q3 sales were exclusively onshore wind turbines, with no offshore orders booked in the quarter.

Vestas’ net profit for the year to date was €387m, up from €198m a year earlier.

In the third quarter of 2015, Vestas generated revenue of €2.12bn – an increase of 17% a year ago. The company said the value of its wind turbine order backlog amounted to €8.2bn as of 30 September.

In addition to the wind turbine order backlog, Vestas had service agreements with contractual future revenue of €8.2bn at the end of September 2015. The combined value of the order backlog and service agreements stood at €16.4bn – an increase of €3bn on a year ago.

The company also announced a €150m share buy-back programme to adjust capital structure and to meet the obligations arising from employee share option programmes or other allocations of shares to employees.

Vestas chief executive Anders Runevad said :

“With greater clarity on deliveries for the remainder of the year and a very solid financial position, we are raising our guidance on revenue, EBIT margin, and free cash flow and initiating a share buy-back programme.”

Spanish manufacturer Gamesa has won a turnkey contract for two 100MW wind power projects in India.

While a 100 MW project in Madhya Pradesh will be commissioned by February 2017, a 100 MW project in Andhra Pradesh will be launched by December 2016.

As a part of this agreement, Gamesa will provide complete turnkey solutions for the dual project which will comprise of supply and erection of 50 units each, a wind turbine, the G97 2.0 MW with an increased hub height of 104m.

While the first 50 will be commissioned at the Amba wind farm in Madhya Pradesh, the remaining will be supplied to the Nimbagallu wind farm in Andhra Pradesh.

The specified Gamesa turbine variant is customised to function in low wind speed sites typical of India.

The Spanish firm has also recently secured a 78MW turbine supply order for a wind power project in New York, US.

The order entitles the company to deliver 37 of its G114-2.1 MW turbines in 2016.

RWE has begun to produce power for the first time at the Zuidwester wind farm in the Netherlands, parts of which are still being built. The total investment is over €150 million.

Fifty turbines installed during the late 1980s and early 1990s are being replaced by large new turbines. Each of the new Zuidwester turbines can generate as much electricity as all 50 turbines of the old wind farm combined.

The electrical energy generated here will be sufficient to supply the equivalent of 80,000 households per year with green electricity.

The new Enercon onshore wind turbines are the largest in the world with a hub height of 135 metres and a capacity of 7.5 megawatts each (90 MW in total).

Rick van Mensvoort, RWE Construction Manager said:

“We started building work here in March 2014. That was followed by the construction of the substation, the laying of the electricity cables and the installation of foundations and towers. Three weeks ago, we were able to install the first wind turbine.”

The Government of the Netherlands intends to increase the share of renewable energies from 5.6% in 2014 to 14% in 2020. The so-called Energy Agreement has set a target of 6,000 megawatts for onshore wind power generation. This represents a more than doubling of the Netherlands’ current onshore wind capacity (approximately 2,500 megawatts).

According to a joint press release from the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden – Württemberg ( ZSW ) and the German Association of Energy and Water Industries ( BDEW ), Germany will reach 33% renewable electricity this year.

ZSW and BDEW said there had been a marked increase in electricity produced by wind power and photovoltaic systems.

Though this is a preliminary estimate, on 31 October 2015 wind energy had already supplied 47% more electricity (63 billion kWh) than during the same time period in 2014.

Solar systems produced 35bn kWh in the first 10 months of 2015, the same as in the whole of 2014.

Frithjof Staiß, executive director of the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research ZSW said :

“If renewable energies now meet one third of electricity demand, it is clear that this element of the Energiewende [Germany’s energy transition] is on a promising path. The rising share from renewable sources makes Germany less dependent on fossil fuels, thereby helping it to achieve its climate protection targets.”

Thomas Grigoleit, Director of Energy, Environment and Resources at Germany Trade and Invest added :

“Even if we don’t hit 33%, the overall increase in Germany’s renewable energy share is terrific news. Not only does it show how important this aspect is in terms of Germany’s Energiewende and climate change targets, it confirms Germany’s pioneering position in the industry. Germany is able not only to install this capacity but integrate it effectively into the grid.”

The Scottish government has approved Statoil plans for the 30MW Hywind 2 floating offshore wind project some 25km off Peterhead.

The Norwegian company was issued with a marine licence to build five Siemens 6MW turbines on spar foundations.

Statoil is due to start onshore works in 2015-16 with offshore construction to follow in 2016-17 with final commissioning before end-2017. It is expected that the farm could power up to 19,900 homes.

The Hywind machines will be attached to the seabed by three-point mooring spread and anchoring system. Power will be exported to an onshore substation.

Statoil vice president for new energy solutions Irene Rummelhoff said:

“Statoil’s objective with developing this pilot park is to demonstrate a commercial, utility-scale floating wind solution, to further increase the global market potential.” Then added :

“We are proud to develop this unique project in Scotland, in a region that has optimal wind conditions, a strong supply chain within oil and gas and supportive public policies.”

The Carbon Trust believes that floating wind concepts have the potential to reduce generating costs to below £100/MWh in commercial deployments, with the leading concepts such as Hywind producing even lower costs of £85-£95MWh.

GeoSea will install its largest-ever monopile foundations at RWE’s 336MW Galloper offshore wind farm in the UK.

The DEME company has been appointed as EPCI contractor for foundations at the 56-turbine project in a deal worth €340m.

Each of the monopiles at Galloper will total more than 1100 tonnes, said GeoSea.

Installation of the substructures is due to kick off at the end of 2016.

Scour protection will be undertaken by Tideway, another part of the DEME group.

RWE is joined by Siemens, the UK Green Investment Bank and Macquarie in a four-way equity split at the wind farm.

The WavEC Seminar 2015 will take place on the 16th of November in Lisbon, Portugal and the B2B meetings at the French Embassy the day after.

These two events offer the opportunity to gather with several entities of the sector and allow attendees to have access to updated and quality information.

The theme of the meeting, entitled “Portugal and France: A driving force on research and innovation in Marine Renewable Energies”, is in partnership with the French Embassy and Institut Français. The event is supported under the high patronage of His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Portugal, with the presence of French, Portuguese and European top experts of the sector.

The following issues will be discussed:

– State of the Art in Portugal and France

– WavEC’s Competences and National and International Partnerships

– Actual Industrial and Technological Capabilities and Future Prospects

– European, French and Portuguese Vision and Development Support to the Sector

The Seminar will focus on the Portuguese supply chain that has obtained know-how through the development of several marine renewable energy (MRE) projects.

The visions of the European Commission, France and Portugal (both from the public and private sector) and the actions planned to start in order to stimulate the sector, as well as the multidisciplinary activities of WavEC will be highlighted in this Seminar.

Registration can be done online by following this link.

Homes in the UK could soon be powered by geothermal energy piped all the way from volcanoes in Iceland, Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Thursday, following a meeting with Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson.

A 750-mile “interconnector” would transport the energy to Britain if the plans go ahead.

Speaking at a press conference in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, Cameron revealed a task-force has been established to examine the feasibility of the project, which is expected to submit a report within six months.

If the exploration is successful then a giant hydro-electricity cable could be built between Britain and Iceland within a decade.

However, the remote location of these sources had made energy exports difficult until now.

The talks are the latest in a series of discussions about using Iceland’s geothermal power in Britain, which have been ongoing since 2012.

Currently 95 percent of Iceland’s energy is produced by hydro and geothermal plants.

German industrial giant Siemens (FRA:SIE) has confirmed today it has received an order to supply and install 56 units of its 6-MW turbine model at the site of the 336-MW Galloper offshore wind project in UK waters, after attracting three new partners.

The utility made a final investment decision this week with the UK Green Investment Bank, Siemens Financial Services and Macquarie Capital each becoming 25% joint equity partners alongside RWE.

The quartet said the 56-turbine Round 2.5 project off Suffolk would combine their “expertise and experience”.

A consortium of 12 commercial banks and the European Investment Bank provides the £1.5 billion debt facilities (€2.1bn)

VBMS has also been awarded two contracts worth €200m to supply and install export and array cables.

The group has signed a consortium with NKT cables to tackle the supply and installation of two 45km export cables including route preparation, landfall operations, burial, termination and testing.

The second contract is for the supply and installation of 56 inter-array cables, for which the cabling specialist has contracted the UK-based cable supplier JDR.

Onshore construction is due to to kick off next week starting with the substation. The full project is due to commence operations in March 2018 and will power up to 336,000 homes. It will create around 700 jobs during construction and around 90 jobs once operational.

Siemens will supply and install 6MW turbines starting in May 2017 and will also deliver a 15 year maintenance contract.

RWE chief executive Hans Bunting said: “Today’s announcement is the culmination of many months of successful negotiations with our partners and investors and shows that the UK is still a strong market for offshore renewables.”