Quantifying the Risk for Offshore Wind Farm Developments

The marine renewables energy sector is an emerging force in energy provision globally and recent announcements by the UK government have created ambitious targets for the domestic market. In the UK it is driven principally by the Energy White Paper (2003) and, more specifically, by the Renewables Obligation, which requires electricity suppliers to source 15% of their supply from renewable sources by 2015, increasing to 20% by 2020. There is more than 1GW of projects with planning consent waiting to be built, and a second round of offshore tenders from The Crown Estate, with a total of 7.2GW, is awaiting application - equivalent to 7% of UK electricity requirement. There are plans for a 2,000 turbine, 10GW wind farm in the North Sea, the largest in European waters, which would supply energy to 8 million homes.

By Kevin Black, Partrac Ltd, UK