Opinion

More “cooperative competition” to boost offshore wind investment

Huub den Rooijen, Head of Offshore Wind at The Crown Estate

Huub den Rooijen, Head of Offshore Wind at The Crown Estate, argues that ‘cooperative competition’ across the industry will be key to bringing down costs in offshore wind.

This has been a landmark year for the UK offshore wind industry. We have seen significant milestones hit, such as 4 GW of capacity now in operation – enough to meet the electricity demands of nearly 3.2 million UK households - and substantial investment announcements, such as that from Siemens and AB Ports for manufacturing facilities on the Humber and financing from the Green Investment Bank to support the construction of two major projects and the establishment of a £1bn Offshore Wind Fund. This is now an annual multi-billion pound market.

As a result, the UK continues to be the most attractive place to invest in offshore wind globally, with fantastic natural resources and a project pipeline that comfortably meets the most demanding Government scenarios– in fact, we estimate that offshore wind will be meeting around ten per cent of the UK’s electricity demand by 2020.

"As offshore wind is an international industry we must seize the opportunity this presents to share learnings in a global context. While The Crown Estate may be geographically distinct we have an interest in seeing technology progress globally and the knock-on effect this has on costs."

However, the technology is still young and relatively costly, and in a world of technology competition and consumer price concerns it is imperative that costs continue to come down. One way by which this can happen is by the industry working together to tackle common cost barriers where appropriate a kind of ‘cooperative competition’.

We are already seeing such collaboration in the approach to health and safety, where windfarm developers and operators have established the G9 group. Another example is the SPARTA platform, currently in pilot phase, set up by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and The Crown Estate, to improve windfarm operational performance by helping operators benchmark their assets against their peers.

As offshore wind is an international industry we must seize the opportunity this presents to share learnings in a global context. While The Crown Estate may be geographically distinct (we manage the UK seabed and do not invest outside of the UK), we have an interest in seeing technology progress globally and the knock-on effect this has on costs.

The recent launch of SeaStar is a great example of this – a pan-European cost-cutting initiative, with secretariat provided by the European Energy Wind Association, aimed at spearheading at least 30GW of new projects in UK, Danish and German waters by concerted actions including collaboration on knowledge management and inspired by the UK’s Offshore Wind Programme Board.

With the conclusion of the UK Government’s Electricity Market Reform and the projects that have already secured funding and consents in the pipeline, a solid foundation has been laid for at least 10 GW of operating offshore wind by 2020 and continued growth beyond. It is now in industry’s hands to demonstrate that costs can come down by working together and sharing information, thus securing offshore wind’s continued place in the UK’s energy mix and the transition to a low carbon economy.

Huub den Rooijen is Head of Offshore Wind at The Crown Estate