Vattenfall and ScottishPower give thumbs up to UK wind

In a case of one step back, two steps forward for the UK wind energy industry, the recent news that BP is to exit the market was followed yesterday by fresh commitments to the sector from Swedish energy giant Vattenfall and ScottishPower Renewables, a subsidiary of Spanish powerhouse Iberdrola Renewables.

The two companies announced that they are to form a consortium to bid for the third round of offshore wind farm licenses that are currently being put up for tender by the UK's Crown Estate.

The companies now have until March next year to put together bids for any of the nine offshore zones where offshore wind farms are to be located. Eariler this year, the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed that will be leased out to developers, said that it had received interest from almost 100 companies in the projects that the government hopes will result in 33GW of offshore wind energy capacity for the UK.

The move came on the same day as Vattenfall also confirmed that it acquired the Thanet wind farm project off the coast of Kent from CRC Energy Jersey 1 Limited in a deal worth £35m.

The acquisition of the rights to build the 300MW project follows Vattenfall's recent purchase of UK wind power companies AMEC Wind Energy Ltd and Eclipse Energy Plc and will make the company one of the largest providers of wind energy in the UK.

Anders Dahl, head of Vattenfall’s wind power division, said the deal highlighted the company's commitment to the UK wind energy sector adding that it was now aiming to have the Thanet wind farm in place by 2010.

Following the recent decision by both BP and Shell to exit the wind sector in the UK in favour of more profitable projects in the US, Energy and Climate Change Minister Mike O’Brien welcomed the Vattenfall deal as evidence that "the UK is still a good place to invest in offshore wind despite the current economic difficulties. The UK is a world leader in this technology".

He added that plans for a huge expansion of offshore wind capacity under the Round 3 projects will "not only help in the fight against climate change but will increase the amount of home grown energy and create jobs".

The Vattenfall and ScottishPower Renewables consortium can now expect to be amongst the front-runners for the Round 3 projects.

The two companies are among the global leaders in the wind sector, with Vattenfall owning two of the world's four largest offshore farms in Sweden and Denmark, as well as Kentish Flats and now Thanet in the UK, and ScottishPower Renewables operating more than 550 MW of wind farms across Great Britain and Ireland.