4th June 2008

The UKs Crown Estate has today launched its round 3 leasing programme for the delivery of up to 25 GW (gigawatts) of new offshore windfarm sites by 2020. The announcement was made at the BWEA (British Wind Energy Association) conference in central London.

The programme for round 3 is expected to accelerate delivery of offshore windfarms projects, combining the development experience of the offshore wind industry with the benefits of The Crown Estate’s knowledge and management experience of the UK’s coasts and seas.

The Crown Estate will in due course be inviting potential partners to bid for development zones; identified through both spatial planning by The Crown Estate and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) being undertaken by BERR. Successful bidders will have exclusive rights to develop windfarms in specified zones.

The Crown Estate is planning to co-invest up to 50 per cent of the cost of obtaining planning consents for windfarm sites, including the funding of enabling works intended to speed up windfarm delivery. This may include action to address generic, zone-wide environmental concerns, consenting bottlenecks, supply chain constraints and options for connecting new windfarms to the national grid.

The selected partners will remain wholly responsible for construction and operation of windfarm sites. The Crown Estate is not intending to take any role in the eventual ownership or operation of offshore windfarms resulting from this programme other than to provide leases of the seabed to operators.

As owner of the seabed, The Crown Estate has a central role in the delivery of offshore wind. Round 3 builds on the 8 GW of offshore windfarm projects currently under development and to be delivered by rounds 1 and 2 of offshore windfarm development. If successful, the addition of the capacity from round 3 would lead to a potential total of 33 GW of wind energy coming from offshore wind resources.

The rapid development of offshore wind capacity is central to the delivery of the UK’s share of the EU target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020.

Rob Hastings, The Crown Estate’s Director of Marine Estates, said: “We recognise that the 2020 EU renewable energy target is a major challenge for the UK. It will demand a strategic vision, combining innovation in technology and energy infrastructure with sympathy for environmental concerns. In partnership with windfarm developers, we will need to establish the best location for windfarms within the programme and gain consensus with key stakeholders to deliver each scheme.

“We need to be sensitive to other marine users and conservation interests, and we have to deliver all this in the context of worldwide competition and a limited supply of new wind turbines. For these reasons we believe that a holistic and joined-up approach is key to the delivery of this project.”

Malcolm Wicks, Minister of State for Energy, said: “Government is aware of the costs and supply challenges facing the industry. It’s hoped The Crown Estate’s investment and leasing programme for round 3 will provide developers with confidence to make investments much earlier on, like signing grid connection agreements or ordering turbines.

“We are working to reduce other barriers such as radar, shipping, grid access and infrastructure issues. We will be consulting in the summer to drive this forward even further to achieve our renewable energy targets.”

The Crown Estate is being advised by Norton Rose LLP, SJ Berwin LLP, Climate Change Capital and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Meanwhile, GE Energy says that its installed fleet of 1.5-megawatt wind turbines has surpassed 115 million operating hours in commercial service worldwide.

“This is an industry record for a single model of wind turbine,” said Victor Abate, Vice President-Renewables for GE Energy. “This milestone has been achieved by more than 8,500 GE 1.5-megawatt wind turbines around the world, including more than 5,200 in the United States. This performance milestone firmly establishes our 1.5-megawatt wind turbine as the workhorse of the global wind energy industry.”

“Increasing reliability is a hallmark of GE’s 1.5-megawatt fleet,” noted Abate. “Since 2002, GE has invested over $750 million in driving reliable and efficient wind technology to improve performance and increase customer value.”

GE’s worldwide service and parts infrastructure is key to the reliable performance of the 1.5-megawatt fleet. GE’s customer support and remote monitoring centers in Schenectady, N.Y. and Salzbergen, Germany provide continuous monitoring and diagnostics services 24 hours a day. The mission of these centers is to increase equipment availability, reduce downtime and operational costs.

Availability of wind turbine parts also is critical to reliable wind power plant operations. To further expand its parts capabilities for customers in the wind industry, today GE is opening a parts fulfillment center in Schenectady, NY that will feature 24-hour-a day access and new online ordering tools. Later this month, GE will also open a parts operation center near Memphis, TN, stocked with fleet-wide critical parts for overnight delivery, when needed.

To support regions with growing wind fleets, GE has also opened Wind Energy Service Centers such as the center in Sweetwater, Texas, where teams of wind technicians work to optimize the performance of wind turbine power plants in the area. According to the American Wind Energy Association, Texas currently leads the U.S. in wind energy, with 5,316.65 megawatts of installed wind capacity by the end of March 2008, of which GE’s 1.5-MW wind turbines account for over one-third.

GE’s Abate also sees an urgent need for an immediate extension of current renewable policies, such as the production tax credit (PTC) that will expire in December of this year. "Every day that passes without an extension puts at risk American jobs and clean energy investments that are reducing the country's dependence on foreign energy imports,” he said.

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