Four bidders have been added to a short list to own and run a transmission link for two offshore windfarms, Ofgem has announced. The competition to win the contract has been strong and the shortlisted companies are competing to own and operate more than £400 million pounds worth of high-wattage transmission links for two windfarms, which are based in the UK.
The shortlisted bidders will now go through to the final stages of the bidding, and then Ofgem will make its decision over which company will be awarded the contract to own and manage the transmission links.
The bids relate to the Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway projects and the bidding is part of the offshore regulatory regime, which was first announced as a partnership by the Department of Energy and Environment and Ofgem in 2009. The regime allows tendering for licensing offshore electricity transmission and the aim is to keep the cost of transmission links as low as possible for consumers.
Once the contract has been awarded, the new Offshore Transmission Owner will be given a 20-year license to own and operate the links, Ofgem said. The four shortlisted bidders have been named by Ofgem as the Balfour Beatty Equitix Consortium (Balfour Beatty Investments Ltd and Equitix Ltd), the Blue Transmission consortium (3i Investments Plc and Mitsubishi Corporation), Mari Energy Transmission (Macquarie Capital Group Ltd and Frontier Power) and Transmission Capital Partners (Transmission Capital Partners Ltd Partnership and International Public Partnerships Ltd).
Westermost Rough is situated in the North Sea and it is owned by WMR limited, which is part of Dong Energy A/S. There are 35 wind turbines on the wind farm and they are capable or producing 205 megawatts of electricity.
A transmission system is being developed by the owner of the offshore windfarm, and as part of the construction there will be an offshore substation platform, offshore and onshore AC export cables and an onshore substation.
Humber Gateway offshore windfarm is located off the coast of North Yorkshire and it is owned by E.ON Climate & Renewables UK. Eventually, it will have 73 wind turbines, which will have the power to produce 220 megawatts of electricity.
Ofgem says that the transmission system is being constructed by the owner of the farm; as with the other windfarm the construction will include an offshore substation platform, offshore and onshore AC export cables and an onshore substation.
Ofgem says that is expects to name the successful bidder for the Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway projects in 2015.