On October 10 Ofgem will start the fifth tender round for offshore transmission owners (OFTOs), where companies will bid to become owners of five transmission links to offshore wind farms. The five links have an estimated value of £2bn in total and a generation capacity of 2.3 GW, which makes Tender Round Five (TR5) the largest to date.
Ofgem will choose the most competitive bids from companies to own and run links to the offshore sites over a 20-year period. The five offshore windfarms for which transmission links are being tendered are:
- Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm Project (402MW)
- Galloper Wind Farm Project (340MW)
- Race Bank Offshore Wind Farm Project (565 MW)
- Rampion Offshore Wind Farm Project (400MW)
- Walney Extension Offshore Wind Farm Project phase one and two (660 MW)
Jonathan Brearley, senior partner, networks, Ofgem, said. “Since the launch of the OFTO regime, the first three tendering rounds have delivered £700 million in savings and have attracted over £3 billion in investment value. By providing the opportunity for investors to now participate in the tendering of over £2 billion of assets in the next round, it should ensure the delivery of further value for consumers and contribute to reducing the overall cost of offshore wind.”
The launch of the fifth round comes after Ofgem announced a shortlist of five bidders to own and run the £230 million transmission link for the Burbo Bank Extension offshore windfarm in the Bay of Liverpool earlier this month. The shortlisted consortia are:
· Balfour Beatty Equitix Consortium (Balfour Beatty Investments and Equitix).
· Dalmore Capital Limited (acting in its capacity as manager of the PPP Equity PIP LP).
· Diamond Transmission Partners ( Mitsubishi Corporation and HICL Infrastructure Company).
· Mari Energy Transmission (Macquarie Corporate Holdings and Frontier Power).
·Transmission Capital Partners (International Public Partnerships and Transmission Capital Partners).
Read more: OFTO Tender Round 5
Related content:
Feature: On track for offshore wind targets
Feature:OFTOs bring in steady income for new breed of power transmission owners (members only)
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