Buffet joins UK offshore wind gold rush

Billionaire American investor Warren Buffet has become arguably the highest profile backer to date to signal his interest in the UK's offshore wind industry, with reports claiming he is could invest around £1bn in building a North Sea energy network.

According to reports in yesterday's Sunday Times, Buffet's Mid-American Energy has made it through to the short list for nine contracts to build and maintain new networks to connect planned offshore wind farms to the mainland.

The company is now expected to bid on a 20 year deal that would see it invest around £1 billion on building and maintaining the new networks. It can expect to face stiff competition, however, from National Grid, Scottish and Southern Energy, RWE, Statkraft, Dong Energy, Macquarie, Transmission Capital and IFM, all of which also reportedly qualified for the bidding stage.

The formal auction process, which is expected to raise £1.15bn, will kick off in the next few weeks and will be followed by two similar auctions next year.

Buffet has emerged as a major investor in low carbon technologies in recent years, snapping up stakes in a number of nuclear energy and electric car firms.

Ofgem, which is managing the auctions, was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

In related news, the rapid expansion of the European offshore wind energy market was further underlined last week when wind farm developer wpd applied for a construction permit for its proposed 1.5GW Finngrunden project, the largest such development in Scandinavia.

If approved, work on the 300 turbine development is expected to get underway in 2014. When completed it will be one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world providing power for the an estimated two million people.