UK offshore wind industry receives dual project boost

Amid all the recent reports of project delays and wary investors, observers would be forgiven for thinking that the UK wind industry is in crisis.

But if that is the case, no one appears to have told three of Europe's largest energy firms, which yesterday announced they were pressing ahead with plans for offshore wind farm developments.

Denmark's Dong Energy yesterday successfully completed the installation of the first offshore turbine to be built as part of the government's Round 2 wind farm programme at its Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm project in the Thames Estuary.

Niels Bergh-Hansen, executive vice president at Dong, said that the new turbine, the first of 48 to be installed as part of the 3.6MW development, marked an "important step" towards the company meeting its target of tripling its renewable energy capacity by 2020.

The announcement came as news emerged that Norwegian energy firm Statkraft is to acquire a 50 per cent stake in the 315MW Round 2 Sheringham Shoal project off the coast of Norfolk, joining StatoilHydro as an equal partner in the 88-turbine project.

StatoilHydro and Statkraft – which are also working together to bid for the government's next wave of Round 3 offshore wind projects as part of the Forewind consortium alongside SSE and RWE – said that work on the project will begin this summer with a view to having the first turbines online by 2011.

Despite recent warnings from some within the industry that the economic viability of some offshore wind projects is increasingly open to question, StatoilHydro’s chief executive Helge Lund insisted that the £1bn Sheringham Shoal development represents "a good commercial project".