Blue Transmission consortium to operate UK wind farm transmission link

Ofgem has appointed the Blue Transmission consortium, comprising Macquarie Capital and Barclays Infrastructure Funds, to own and operate the transmission link to the 317MW Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm in the UK.

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The energy watchdog awarded the contract following a competitive tender under the offshore transmission owner (OFTO) scheme.

Blue Transmission will acquire the link for £193m, which will bring the total amount of investment in the first tender round of the OFTO scheme to £660m.

Located off the coast of North Norfolk, the wind farm features 88 turbines with a capacity of 3.6MW each, which will generate approximately 1.1TWh of clean energy annually.

The $1.8bn wind farm has been built by Scira Offshore, which is a joint venture between Norwegian energy companies Statoil and Statkraft.

The project is in line with the UK Government’s target of producing 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

"The project is in line with the UK Government’s target of producing 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020."

The Blue Transmission consortium has previously been awarded OFTO licenses to operate the offshore transmission links to the 184MW Walney 1 and the 184MW Walney 2 windfarms in the Irish Sea.

In September 2012, Ofgem E-Serve also appointed Blue Transmission as the preferred bidder to own and operate the high-voltage link for the London Array (Phase 1) wind farm.

Ofgem said that the first transitional tender round attracted approximately £4bn of investment for £1.1bn of offshore transmission links to nine offshore wind farms.

Image: The Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm is located in the Greater Wash, 17km from Sheringham and 23km from Cromer’s northern coastline in eastern England. Photo: file image.