Member Article

Ofgem approves six West of Duddon Sand bidders

Six bidders have qualified to compete for a contract worth £311m at West of Duddon Sands offshore windfarm near Cumbria.

The £50m farm, which is a joint venture between ScottishPower Renewables and DONG Energy, will be situated 14km off the coast of Walney Island in the East Irish Sea and close to wind farms in Barrow, Ormonde and Walney.

West of Duddon Sands is expected to house 108 turbines and generate renewable energy for more than 300,000 UK households.

Good water depths and close access to the national grid made this location ideal for the project, as well as “good wind resources” to power the turbines.

Bidders will compete for the high-voltage transmission link to the windfarm, which the winner will operate for the next 20 years.

Ofgem E-Serve said the qualifying bidders included: Balfour Beatty Equitix Consortium, Blue Transmission, John Laing Investments, National Grid Offshore, Skanska and Transmission Capital Partners.

This second transitional tender round has £1.4bn of transmission assets being tendered, following the first bidding process for £1.1bn of transmission links, which brought in nearly £4bn of investment.

Ofgem E-Serve’s managing director, Robert Hull, commented: “The strong interest in competing
for the West of Duddon Sands transmission assets is further proof that the offshore
regime is successfully encouraging investment, attracting new players and ensuring
competition in the offshore transmission sector.”

The next tender round is expected to open later in 2013.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .