Scotland: ScottishPower Renewables Welcomes Amber Rudd’s Commitment to Offshore Wind and Submits Plans for Major East Anglian Offshore Windfarm

On the same day as Energy Secretary Amber Rudd’s announcement that funding mechanisms will be available for three auctions in this Parliament to support offshore wind, ScottishPower Renewables has officially submitted plans for East Anglia THREE, a new 1,200 megawatt (MW) windfarm to be located off the coast of Suffolk.

The East Anglia THREE development will require up to 172 wind turbines, and covers an area of 305km2 in the southern North Sea. Once completed, the windfarm could power the annual electricity demands of more than 850,000 homes.

Keith Anderson, CEO of ScottishPower Renewables, said: “We were very pleased to hear Amber Rudd’s commitment today to support the continued growth of offshore wind power. The more offshore wind capacity we have in the UK, the more secure our energy supplies will be. It already powers 3.5 million homes per year, and with wind around our coasts in plentiful supply, it has the potential to play an even more significant role.

“Our East Anglia ONE project was successful in the last government auction with a price of £119/MWh, which will make it the best value offshore windfarm ever developed in the UK.  But we want to see costs come down even further. Our entire industry wants to get to a place where subsidy is not required, and significant progress is being made to deliver this in the near future.

“The offshore wind industry in the UK now benefits from more powerful and more efficient turbines. We have better vessels, more experience of working offshore, a healthier supply chain, a growing engineering skills base, increased capability to export our products and expertise around the globe, as well as ever increasing investment in UK infrastructure.  All of these factors mean that costs are reducing quickly, and large projects are achievable.”

It is anticipated that East Anglia THREE could support up to 4,800 jobs in the UK during the construction phase, representing more than £400m for the UK economy. Around 2,900 jobs could be supported in the East of England region alone, adding over £248m to the regional economy during construction.

The planning application will be considered by the National Infrastructure team within the Planning Inspectorate. If approved, it is anticipated that onshore construction could begin in 2021, with offshore work starting in 2022 and first power generation achieved in 2023.

ScottishPower Renewables is already developing the East Anglia ONE offshore windfarm, which is a £2 billion project that will see up to 102 turbines installed, with a capacity of up to 714MW.

East Anglia THREE

East Anglia THREE was initially a 50/50 joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall. In August 2015 ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall agreed to independently take forward offshore windfarm projects within the ‘East Anglia Zone’. This followed-on from industry-wide changes agreed with The Crown Estate, whereby ‘zone development agreements’ were replaced with project specific agreements.

ScottishPower Renewables is developing projects in the southern area of the zone, which includes East Anglia THREE, with Vattenfall developing projects in the northern section of the zone. The overall capacity remains at up to 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of potential, with each developer working on proposals for around half of the overall capacity.

The full East Anglia THREE project will include:

• Offshore wind turbines and foundations, up to 172 wind turbines to provide an installed capacity of 1,200MW
• Up to 6 offshore electrical platforms and their foundations to collect the electricity from the turbines and transform it to a form suitable for transfer to shore
• Up to 4 seabed export cables, totalling around 664km in length, to transfer the electricity to shore
• A landfall site with onshore transition pits to connect the offshore and onshore cables
• Up to twelve onshore underground cables, each of around 37km in length, using the consented East Anglia ONE cable route to transfer the electricity from landfall to an onshore converter station/substation at Bramford to connect to the National Grid