UK fast-tracks approval for offshore wind cabling project
UK fast-tracks approval for offshore wind cabling project | Windpower Monthly
The EGL1 project is being developed by National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) and SP Transmission, part of SP Energy Networks. It will transport electricity between Scotland’s East Lothian and County Durham in the northeast of England.
Under the fast-track process, the project has received from ASTI a provisional £2 billion (€2.33 billion) funding package to deliver the subsea energy superhighway, energy regulator Ofgem said.
The vast majority of the 196-kilometre cable will be under the North Sea, with the remaining 20 kilometres running underground to link the cable to substations and converter stations in Torness, East Lothian and Hawthorn Pit, County Durham.
Ofgem said it had identified £43 million worth of cuts in indirect costs from the developer’s proposals, thereby reducing costs for consumers without impacting project delivery or quality. The proposed budget is now undergoing consultation.
The project will also need to secure planning permission under the oversight of the Planning Inspectorate.
ASTI is designed to speed up the delivery of strategic energy projects to allow more electricity generated by offshore wind to reach British consumers.
It accelerates the project funding process by up to two years, according to Ofgem, by allowing projects critical to the government’s target of 50GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 to bypass the previous piecemeal, project-by-project approval framework.
EGL1 is the first of 26 critical energy projects, worth an estimated £20 billion, to be fast-tracked under the process.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.