Ofgem and BERR announce 'offshore renewables to get connected with up to £2bn investment'

22 January 2008

Ofgem and the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) announced today that the UK’s offshore renewable industry is set to benefit from measures to connect at least £2 billion of investment to the national grid. Ofgem states that the investment would be needed to deliver the necessary infrastructure to connect the eight gigawatts (GW) of planned offshore wind generation.

The Government has confirmed that Ofgem would run the competitive tender to appoint companies to connect the offshore generation projects. The regulator has also published a follow-up consultation document seeking views on the design of the offshore regulatory regime and on the format for the tender process needed for the project. The aim is to provide the most cost-effective and efficient connections for offshore generators, while maintaining the principles that ensure the stability of the whole grid network and enable participation in the GB energy market. In addition the Government announced in December that it is carrying out a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of a plan for its objective to achieve up to 25GW of offshore wind generation.

The Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks commented: "The UK is on course to become the world's number one location in terms of installed offshore renewable capacity this year. We have been working hard with Ofgem and industry to deliver the necessary regulatory regime for offshore renewables. It is our intention that the new regime for licensing offshore transmission owners should be finalised this year."