Jason Ford

Lack of foundation test sites 'a risk for UK offshore wind'

News

The Carbon Trust has warned that innovations to reduce offshore wind costs are at risk as Britain has nowhere to demonstrate new, lower-cost foundations with more powerful offshore wind turbines.

Carbon Trust believes that without an urgent solution many cost saving innovations won’t be available in time for the rollout of Round 3 projects, which are expected to deliver up to 18GW of new generating capacity by 2020.

According to Carbon Trust, the cost of offshore wind energy is currently around £140 to £150/MWh. With innovation and cost reduction in a number of key areas, such as new foundations, the Carbon Trust has shown that costs can be reduced to around £100/MWh. The organisation warns that this level of cost reduction won’t happen unless new innovations are properly tested in situ to provide developers and financiers with technical assurance before undertaking major multi-billion pound procurement programmes.

The foundations of an offshore wind farm currently account for about 30 per cent of the typical wind farm costs, so improving their designs and reducing their installation costs can have a material impact on cutting the overall cost of energy generation.

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