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DELIVERING THE UKS WIND, WAVE AND TIDAL ENERGY

www.renewableuk.com | Issue 26 | OctoberDecember 2011

SPECIAL

PLUS

FOCUS

Annual Conference
edition

The Localism Bill

demystified

Skills and
Training

Interview: David Mackay

Government Chief Scientific Advisor

FRONT COVER:
MPI Offshore is a world leader in wind turbine
installation. The company has a strong track record of
facilitating the transport and installation of offshore
projects to exacting standards of quality, safety and
project execution.

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DELIVERING THE UKS WIND, WAVE AND TIDAL ENERGY

www.renewableuk.com | Issue 26 | OctoberDecember 2011

SPECIAL

PLUS

FOCUS

Annual Conference
edition

The Localism Bill

demystified

Skills and
Training

RENEWABLEUK CONTACTS
ADAM BELL
Communications Manager
Adam.Bell@renewableuk.com
ZOLTAN ZAVODY
Grid Policy Manager
Zoltan Zavody@renewableuk.com

For further information see page 68.

Interview: David Mackay
Government Chief Scientific Advisor

07

FOREWORD:
Delivering on our targets
Maria McCaffery MBE, Chief Executive, RenewableUK

CASSANDRA GRAY
Events Officer (exhibitions)
Cassandra.Gray@renewableuk.com

09

Wind industry takes the lead in driving down costs

Andrew Jamieson, Chairman, RenewableUK

10

Interview: Dr David Mackay FRS

14

RENEWABLEUKS NEWS IN BRIEF

19

Onshore wind: A proven success by Lewis Smith

23

Onshore wind: Overcoming challenges by Jessica Shankleman

29

The Localism Bill by Jennifer Webber

33

Case Study: Small wind at the heart of rural England by Ben Alcraft

37

Exporting wind: Ireland and the All Island Framework by Ben Backwell

41

RenewableUK and DECC Onshore Wind Supply seminar by Rhys Thomas

47

Onshore Wind 2011: Rob Norris reports

51

Offshore wind: Knocking down costs by Jessica Shankleman

53

New taskforce to cut costs

CHARLES ANGLIN
Director of Communications
Charles.Anglin@renewableuk.com
CHRIS STREATFIELD
Director of Health & Safety
Chris.Streatfield@renewableuk.com
CLARE DALY
Membership Manager
Clare.Daly@renewableuk.com
GEMMA GRIMES
Head of Onshore Renewables
Gemma.Grimes@renewableuk.com
GORDON EDGE
Director of Policy
Gordon.Edge@renewableuk.com

55

Renewable Energy and the Natural Environment by Jim Smyllie

59

Pumped up pipeline heralds offshore wind boom by James Murray

63

SeaEnergy aims to shake up offshore market after Round 3 by Ben Backwell

69

Monopile grouting: Repair options by James Lawson

75

Mind the skills gap: Get your business involved by Fruzsina Kemenes

79

New diploma: wind turbine operation & maintenance by Chris Corken

81

Jobs report: Training must become a priority by Tim Lezard

85

Health & Safety: Stepping up to the challenge by Chris Streatfield

91

A profile of Peter Fraenkel: Tidal pioneer by Elizabeth Block

95

Taking the pulse of the wave and tidal industry by Vanya Dragomanovich

101

Wave and tidal energy: The UK is a developmental hub by Lewis Smith

111

Offshore engineering: Can wind learn from oil and gas? by James Lawson

115

Electricity market: Understanding the reforms by Ed Rimmel

119

Action for Renewables: What inspires volunteers to campaign?

by Adam Bell

121

MV switchgear for wind farms by David M. Goiricelaya

123

Scottish Government sets high standards for offshore wind by Jenny Hogan

130

Book Reviews

133

Notices and Events

134

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chief

BY MARIA McCAFFERY
RENEWABLEUK

Delivering on
our targets
MARIA McCAFFERY, MBE
RENEWABLEUK CHIEF EXECUTIVE

A very warm welcome to this special RenewableUK

2011 Conference edition of RealPower. This annual
salutation is a great opportunity for us to reflect
on the past year and a very good starting point for
the preparation of our Annual Review and our
focus on priorities for the next year. Looking back,
we can be proud of our achievements over the
course of this year hundreds of new wind
turbines installed, significant advances in the
development of wave and tidal technology, and
millions of homes powered with clean, green
renewable energy.
The industry has grown in strength despite the
recession, employing thousands more people and
significantly increasing its turnover. However,
there are further challenges ahead challenges
that will require changes to working practices and
new ways of thinking. The Governments
Electricity Market Reform package will require the
development of new financing models for low
carbon energy projects, as well as a different
structure of income. The rebanding of the
Renewables Obligation, uncertain at the time
of writing, will have an impact on investment
decisions that are being made right now. The
passing of the Localism Bill as it stands at the
time of writing could result in a significant
majority of wind energy projects being subject to
a referendum. We are passing from an era in
which technical correctness was the barometer
for planning applications to one in which local
acceptability is paramount; from an Age of Experts
to an Age of Consent.

This is why I was so pleased when Tony Juniper

agreed to chair Action for Renewables (A4R), the
RenewableUK campaign intended to develop
grassroots support for renewable energy across the
UK the very type of support that we will need to
win future referendums on our projects. Tony will
be opening our flagship conference this year with
a keynote address and his profile and experience
as the former Executive Director of Friends of
the Earth will be instrumental in developing A4R
into a very effective campaign. Together, we are
reaching out to the silent majority of renewable
energy supporters throughout the UK and
encouraging them to come out to campaign for
green energy projects.
Effective communication with the public that sets
out the benefits of renewable energy clearly and
comprehensively is only part of the story. Our
Community Benefit Protocol, launched in February,
provides more certainty to English communities
about the benefits that will accrue to them as a
result of hosting a wind farm. We are working to
develop a similar model for Wales.
The innovative proposal to retain business rates
at local level, rather than allowing them to be
swallowed up by central government, was a
particularly proud victory for RenewableUK,
providing another concrete example of the way
our industry can bring tangible benefits to
local communities.
However, public support is only part of the
challenge: continuing policy uncertainty, especially
around the elements of the reforms of the

electricity market that were not made clear in the

Governments white paper, is slowing investment.
We must continue to press Government for
resolution of this uncertainty in a way that
galvanises our efforts to deliver our national and
European renewable energy targets.
The Renewables Obligation banding review
represents a very immediate uncertainty, and we
welcome the Governments decision to bring
forward this review by a year. However, we are
concerned that the Government may take the
overtly political step of reducing the ROC multiple
associated with onshore wind projects. Onshore
wind is the least expensive form of low-carbon
generation, and research has shown that reducing
the ROC multiple, even with a carbon floor price,
will cut deployment of this technology by a
significant factor. The shortfall in renewable
generation that could result from any downgrading
will be met by other, more expensive technologies,
increasing the cost of meeting renewable energy
targets to the consumer. We will call on the
Government to recognise this economic fact in
its banding review.
Your conference programme will tell you when
and where these, and many other, issues will be
debated and discussed over our three to four days
in Manchester. I urge you to take full advantage of
the many opportunities our biggest annual event
offers for keeping up to date with national policy,
learning about best practice in all our sectors and,
of course, the all-important networking potential
of over 6,000 participants. I hope to see you there.

www.renewableuk.com

chairman

BY ANDREW JAMIESON
RENEWABLEUK

Wind industry takes the lead

in driving down costs

ANDREW JAMIESON,
RENEWABLEUK CHAIRMAN
As we gather for our annual conference, we can
reflect that this has been a landmark year for the
wind and marine energy industry. We have seen key
government announcements on Electricity Market
Reform (EMR) and the launch of the Department of
Energy and Climate Changes (DECC) Renewable
Energy Roadmap. At the time of writing, an
announcement on the Renewables Obligation
Certificate (ROC) banding review is imminent.
RenewableUK has continued to publish a series of
benchmark studies, widely considered to be the
definitive documents on the state of our industries.
These are circulated amongst opinion-formers at
the highest levels. One of this years reports
examined ways in which we can drive down the
cost of offshore wind a key question facing the
industry. I was honoured to accept the role of
Chairman of the Offshore Wind Cost Reduction
Task Force, which will work with Government on
this crucial issue.
There is much to welcome in the publication of
the Renewable Energy Roadmap. The Government
makes a clear commitment to offshore wind,
stating that the UK is well placed to continue its
role as global leader in this sector to 2020 and
beyond, with 18GW deployed by that date. This is
a significant increase on the 13GW put forward in
DECCs Renewable Energy Strategy in 2009.
However, we are aiming even higher than 18GW,
as we believe that if significant progress on
reducing barriers is made, then at least 20GW is
achievable by the time the next decade begins.
DECCs projection that onshore wind would
contribute 13GW by 2020 was somewhat
disappointing. We believe that it should be possible
to deploy at least 15GW onshore by that date. Any
lower figure suggests a lack of ambition in the
Governments attitude towards onshore wind
the very sector that provides the cheapest of all
forms of renewable energy.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
Change, Chris Huhne, has rightly described his EMR

proposals as the most significant reform of our

electricity market for years. Although we would
have preferred to retain the ROC system, we can
work with the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) Contract for
Difference (CfD) mechanism that will replace it,
starting in 2014.
However, we need more detail from the
Government about exactly how this new system
will be structured, and how it will operate, to
ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible.
RenewableUK will feed its thoughts on CfD and
market design to the Government ahead of the
Technical Update due at the end of the year.
As I write this, we are still waiting for an
announcement on the ROC banding review.
Whatever news this brings, RenewableUK will be
lobbying hard during the three-month consultation
period to ensure that we secure the best possible
deal for all our members.
We will continue to ensure that our key messages
are being heard in Westminster that the wind and
marine energy industries offer unparalleled
opportunities to meet our carbon reduction targets,
provide energy security and create tens of thousand
of jobs. To do this, we need no less than one ROC
for onshore wind, two ROCs for offshore, and five
ROCs for wave and tidal, if we are to continue to
develop these dynamic, world-class industries.
We will play our part by continuing to examine
ways to reduce costs. Earlier this year,
RenewableUK published a study showing that the
overall price of generating electricity offshore is set
to fall significantly over the next ten years. The
report examines the most important measure for
the offshore wind industry, the whole-life costs of
projects to be built from 2011 to 2022. This
includes capital expenditure, operational costs and
the energy yield.

Under favourable conditions, the decrease would

be as much as 33 per cent.
With 20GW installed by the end of 2020, the
report shows that UK offshore wind capital
expenditure (CAPEX) will continue to increase in
the next few years as projects are located further
offshore and in deeper water. Technological
developments will offset the costs incurred by
these conditions, so that costs will improve in the
decade ahead. Operational expenditure (OPEX)
per MW installed will decrease significantly over
the next decade, because well be using a smaller
number of larger and more reliable turbines.
As I mentioned earlier, it is an honour to accept
the Chairmanship of the Offshore Wind Cost
Reduction Task Force, which will recommend how
industry and government can work together to
ensure that costs are brought down effectively.
The industry-led group, which will also involve the
Government and The Crown Estate, will set out a
path and actions for bringing down the levelised
cost of electricity from offshore wind to 100 per
MWh. This will be very much a team effort, and I
urge you all to help me in this task. When it is
achieved and it is a case of when rather than
if we will be in an even stronger position to
consolidate our rightful place at the forefront of
the renewable energy sector.
The Offshore Wind Cost Reduction Task Force
will aim to reduce costs to 100/MWh

The whole-life cost is expected to be driven down

by more than 15 per cent in real terms between
2011 and 2022, under normal market conditions.

www.renewableuk.com

DR DAVID MACKAY
RealPower catches up with Dr David Mackay FRS, Chief Scientific Advisorr for the UK Department of Energy and
Climate Change (DECC) and author of Sustainable Energy without the hot air. Nick Medic reports.

David Mackay believes storage technology is key to achieving zero carbon energy supply. Photo: Ben Alcraft

RealPower: There is a sense that fossil fuel

exploitation engenders a specific type of
international politics in which states compete
over what is effectively a dwindling resource. Is
renewable energy, on the other hand, likely to
encourage a more cooperative politics think
DESERTEC and the Supergrid and should this not
be flagged up and quantified as a tangible benefit?
David Mackay: I completely agree, not that I have
any expertise in international politics! I think that
if Europe were, for example, to enter into an
energy dependence on North Africa in which we
imported electricity from their solar power
stations, then this might have a very stabilising
influence on our relationships, quite different from
the relationships that come from a dependence on
oil imports and gas imports one main difference
would be that a solar-power-exporting country
would never have a financial incentive to withhold
its electricity exports, given that electricity is not
storable at scale, whereas fossil fuels can easily be
held in the ground.
RP: One of the striking illustrations in your book
is about a small area of the Sahara, which could
provide the energy for one billion people. Is this
imminent?
10

www.renewableuk.com

DM: Solar power in deserts isnt cost competitive

with coal and gas yet, so I dont think its imminent.
When you mentioned the small area in the desert,
the thing I was really emphasising in my book is
that its not such a small area. To entirely power
Britain, youd need at least a Wales-worth of
Sahara. To really make a significant contribution to
European consumption, were talking about an area
of the size of Germany or so, which still looks small
compared with the Sahara. So yes, even though the
Sahara desert has a higher power per unit area than
other renewables, its only a factor of seven or so
higher. The land requirements are still large. Do I
think it should be on the table as one of the
options we think about? Absolutely. I think the
long-term future for humanity if humanity is
going to get off fossil fuels has to involve a lot of
solar in deserts. I think its a really important
technology to emphasise, and then for Europe it
would be natural if we can get the costs of other
renewables like offshore wind down as well, for
them to be part of a Supergrid solution. You could
imagine that Supergrid using a lot of wind power in
the winter and a lot of solar power in the summer.
But another thing that approach is going to need is
ways of coping with intermittency, since the sun
shines in the day and the wind blows when the
wind blows.

RP: Your book is very detailed on the types of

storage technologies we might need to achieve a
zero-carbon energy supply. Why is that?
DM: I think another breakthrough that is going to
be needed to really enable the Supergrid and to
enable the full technical potential of renewables is
storage technology. So one of the things I have as
part of my role at DECC is a responsibility for
DECCs innovation support funds, and Im really
emphasising the importance of looking at storage,
because we need to reduce the cost of energy
storage, for example, by storing electricity in things
like batteries, flow cells or maybe storing energy as
chemicals. By making hydrogen more efficiently in
fuel cells and using hydrogen more efficiently we
could really unlock the potential of renewables. At
the moment the costs of storage, unfortunately,
are high and so if you ask people what the
economically optimal solution is to cope with a
system with a lot of wind in it, theyll say, Well,
well mothball the gas power stations and just run
them when the wind doesnt blow. I am really
passionate that we should try to find a better
solution than that.
RP: Do you think that the intermittency or
variability argument can be addressed by saying

that, once we have the Supergrid, the renewable

resources will be so diversified across Europe and
northern Africa that effectively there will always
be something happening somewhere?
DM: I think thats wishful thinking. I think we need
to be really careful that this argument adds up. The
truth is that weather systems cover the whole of
Europe and its not the case that the wind is
always blowing somewhere. Let me be more
precise than that. Yes, to some degree the wind is
blowing somewhere. But if the wind is really low in
Britain for a few days then theres a good chance
its going to be pretty low in Germany for a few
days too. Yes, there is a slight smoothing effect
but all the same, the wind comes and goes on a
1,000km scale. So there is an issue of
intermittency and we cant just say, Well, the sun
will shine, because it might be winter. The fact is
that sunshine in the winter is seven times less than
sunshine in the summer. So weve really got to do
the numbers and have a plan that does work for
handling intermittency, and there are many
solutions. We dont have to have mothballed gas
power stations, its just that that is the cheapest
option at the moment as a backup solution. The
other technologies are interconnectors, using
pumped storage, other storage technologies like
flow batteries. Maybe potentially storing electricity
as heat using very efficient reversible heat pumps.
Im keen for innovation support for these
technologies, in order to see if we can use them to
unlock the full potential of renewables.
RP: There seems to be a conceptual shift towards a
notion that whatever we use for backing up lowcarbon generation needs to be low carbon too. In
that context, the idea that Norways hydro and
pumped storage resources should be used to
balance the UKs wind resources is gaining
increasing traction in policy circles. What needs to
happen so that this concept can become reality?
DM: If were talking about having 33 gigawatts
(GW) of wind, or maybe even larger quantities, I
think we would need much more interconnection
than is happening at the moment. The attitude you
mentioned that we should have zero-carbon
backup, as well as the primary source, was exactly
the attitude in my book. Lets imagine a world with
no fossil fuels, what would we do? And so I went
for that purist approach and said, Lets have
interconnectors and see how much of a
connection we could have to Norway. I dont
know the answer yet. Im looking to correspond
with appropriate people in Norway to try to get a
real understanding of what the credible potential
of a connection to Norway would be. In my book I
think I estimated about 10GW might be possible
to Norway. To put that in perspective, we currently
have 3GW of interconnection, two to France, one
to the Netherlands. The Netherlands has some
interconnection to Norway, but I imagine thats
on a scale of a gigawatt or so. So a 10GW
interconnection would be a significant increase

I feel the media are often too

full of scare stories and we get
people excited about things, so I
think its important to calm down
and really focus the attention on
the things that deserve to be the
stories, where we say, Hey, this is
worrying.

and would amount to quite a lot of their total

capacity, so that if we were sucking 10GW from
Norway we would be taking much more than they
produce on average in their electricity system. We
would have half of their hydro facilities all working
flat out to give us 10GW. So I think that would be
asking quite a lot of them, and then the question is
how much we need. If we have 33GW of wind,
then the average output of that wind would be
something like 10 or 12GW, and so a 10GW
connection would be able to substitute for the
average output of our wind, so that would be in
the right ballpark. Can we get that 10GW? I also
think its possible that the economics of that may
be able to compete with the economics of the gas
backup; I certainly hope so.
RP: In terms of grid integration, it seemed for a
long time that the hydrogen economy was the
killer app that would unlock the true potential of
renewables. It now seems this idea has receded
into the background. Why do you think this is the
case, and what future is there for this idea?
DM: I think the German plans for being close to
zero carbon in 2050 do involve an assumption that
the wind power theyll build in the future will be
used to electrolyse water and make hydrogen. So I
think there are a lot of credible people still working
on the hydrogen side of things. In my book I was
actually quite rude about the hydrogen economy
myself. I was a bit sceptical when I wrote the book,
but we are still supporting fuel cell work here at
DECC and I think its definitely something to keep
on the table. If we can get the costs of making
hydrogen and the efficiency of making hydrogen
down, then that could really unlock the potential
of wind. You could use wind to make electricity
and make hydrogen, which could be going directly
into transport; it could be going into various forms
of industry. It could perhaps be used to make
electricity again, so it could be a storage route. I
definitely think there is a credible technical
potential there and Ive not given up on it. I think if
I were to write another edition of my book I might
not be quite so dismissive of hydrogen, because

Ive become more aware of the intermittency

challenge in the last few months.
RP: So do you now see intermittency or variability,
rather than increasing production from renewables,
as the key technological challenge?
DM: Yes, whilst the costs remain high I dont think
its credible to say we can just deploy very large
amounts and then presumably spill the wind when
we have an excess. If wind turbines were free, then
yes, you could deploy ten times as many as we
actually need and spill the wind whenever we have
excess electricity, but theyre not yet.
RP: Do you see a new technology in the next
twenty years making a significant impact on our
low-carbon generation potential, or do you think
we now have pretty much all the pieces that we
need to decarbonise, at least up to about 2050?
DM: Well, in the wind turbines, the specific
technology breakthrough Im excited about is the one
that Artemis had in Edinburgh, with DECC support.
They developed digital hydraulic transmissions for
wind turbines as a replacement for mechanical
gearboxes, and that allows the turbines that theyll be
making in the future to produce nice grid-matched
power at whatever rotation rate at which the blades
are going round. This same technology is in vehicles
as well and gives infinitely variable gearboxes. So Ive
got my eyes on that as something thats going to
really enhance the capabilities of turbines. It also
makes it very easy to do a little bit of storage on the
turbine itself, because you could have a little
compressed-air store as part of your hydraulic
system. Theyve put this into vehicles, so theyve got
a BMW that has a canister a couple of litres in size,
which can store enough energy as compressed air to
accelerate the BMW twice, and that means you can
run the engine much more at its sweet spot. You
could get the same with a wind turbine. If the wind
speed is fluctuating in the neighbourhood of the
turbine, it could smooth out those fluctuations using
the store and do a better job of producing gridmatched output at all times.

MacKay thinks kite power from the likes of Makani could be a significant breakthrough
Photo: Makani Power

www.renewableuk.com

11

RP: What about technologies that can be deemed

completely new from the bottom up, such as kite
power? Is there something out there, currently in
its infancy, which is about to make a significant
difference?
DM: Weve already mentioned solar power in
deserts, of which there are a few prototypes. Kite
power is also on my list of technologies that I think
could be widespread by 2050 and could be a really
big breakthrough. The leader in kite power from
California is Makani, and I think it has a really good
team. Im very keen, if its possible, for them to do
some work in the British Isles as well as over in
California. The reason that it could be a big
breakthrough is that the material costs in a kite,
and the system for running the kite, would be
much lower. It would be maybe seven times lighter
than a standard wind turbine of the same power
and so, if the material costs go down sevenfold,
maybe the capital costs themselves would also go
down by a significant factor. So I think that could
be a real breakthrough in the renewables sector.
RP: What do you think is the realistic potential of
wave and tidal technology, in the next twenty to
fifty years?
DM: Im especially enthusiastic about tidal
streams potential, because the environment
underneath the waves is a pretty benign
environment; you just have extremely predictable
currents going to and fro. Theres no such thing as
a storm down there, so you dont need to engineer
your power system to be able to survive massive
extremes. In contrast, the wave world is a really
violent and unpleasant place. I wish the developers
well and I hope they can bring their costs down
and succeed, but Ill be more surprised if wave
really comes through and ends up being able to
deliver in the same way that wind power is
delivering today. With tidal stream, I think it is
credible that developers could get their costs down
and compete with wind and if that happens, Id
imagine that we could, in twenty years time, be
looking at 10GW or so of tidal stream power in UK
waters, and also in other places around the world.

promising start, and now its just a question of

doing some more learning, getting down the cost
curve, figuring out how to make the foundations
really cheap (because thats one of the most
expensive parts), making the foundations and
installing the device in the first place.
RP: In the current financial climate, is energy
independence perhaps becoming a more dominant
argument for deploying renewables, as opposed to
climate change, particularly as climate change still
seems to provoke controversy?
DM: In my book, I always gave the security of
supply and the climate change motivations as
equal motivations for saying yes, were interested
in life after fossil fuels. I think in the British
discussion of what were doing with the energy
system, both of those concerns are strong. Our
own fossil fuel resources are running down; peak
oil in the UK was ten or twenty years ago, and gas
has peaked as well. So I think theres a strong
security of supply message, whatever people
believe about climate change. I think my feeling
around London is that the climate change
argument is settled, and there is still cross-party
support for the Climate Change Act, so I think
Britain is able to continue being a leader in climate
change action.
RP: What are your views on peak oil and peak coal,
and what do you think needs to be done to raise
awareness of these issues?
DM: Its really important to get good data from
experts on these questions. One of the things I
have done whilst at DECC is send out a request for
evidence from experts on their views, specifically
on oil, since the price shocks associated with oil
have been one of the biggest drivers of world
problems in the last few years. Their view is that, in

the long term, oil production in some form or

other, either conventional oil or unconventional oil,
will continue for a long time. There may be a peak
in the next ten or fifty years, but production will
continue (unless people actually stop demanding
and wanting it, because, for instance, of
international agreements). The idea that oil
production in all forms will actually fall rapidly, and
therell be no oil, doesnt seem credible. I imagine
the story is similar for coal.
So what shall we do in terms of educating people?
Well, I think its important not to cry wolf too
much. I wouldnt want there to be an education
programme for children, saying, Oh yes, lets
teach children about the imminent end of coal,
because theyll just get sick of hearing these stories
that were about to run out of everything. Were
not going to run out of lots of things. Some things
may be running out, and I think supplies of easily
accessible cheap oil are coming close to what the
demand is, so theres an issue there. I feel the
media are often too full of scare stories and we get
people excited about things, so I think its
important to calm down and really focus the
attention on the things that deserve to be the
stories, where we say, Hey, this is worrying.
So coming back to climate change, Id say that on
climate change, unlike on the peak coal question,
theres a really strong consensus, in that climate
change is happening, so Im very happy that kids
are being taught about climate change. And the
sort of news stories you can talk about are, for
instance, on the Arctic sea ice this year and last
year, which was about four or five standard
deviations below the mean of the distribution.
Something is happening there. So there are all
these pieces of data that again and again are
telling us, yes, climate change is happening. I think
thats worth focusing on.

RP: I assume this hopeful assessment of tidal

power is based on some of the devices and
prototypes you have already seen?
DM: Yes, I think the device in Strangford Lough,
built by Marine Current Turbines is fantastic. Its
performing really well and its load factor is above
50 per cent. I think its a great piece of engineering,
and maybe in twenty years they will have evolved
from that design, but I think thats a very

I think theres a strong security of

supply message, whatever people
believe about climate change. I
think my feeling around London is
that the climate change argument
is settled, and there is still crossparty support for the Climate
Change Act, so I think Britain is
able to continue being a leader in
climate change action.
12

www.renewableuk.com

Nick Medic (left) interviews David Mackay at DECCs offices in Whitehall. Photo: Ben Alcraft

news
HEALTH AND SAFETY
AWARDS SCHEME
RenewableUK and The Crown Estate
have announced the creation of the
first ever health and safety awards
scheme, to recognise outstanding
performance in the renewable energy
sector.
The initiative will be open to all
renewable energy technologies, and is
another example of renewable
industries working together to take a
global lead on a highly important
issue. The first annual winner will be
announced at the RenewableUK Health
and Safety Conference on 1st February
2012.
The main purpose is to recognise
the development, implementation and
sharing of best practice in health and
safety across the industry. It is hoped
that such examples will act as a
beacon to drive and deliver the highest
health and safety standards over what
will be a critical stage of growth for
the renewable energy sector.
Maria McCaffery MBE, Chief
Executive of RenewableUK, said: "The
awards scheme is a tangible example
of the paramount importance we
attach to health and safety within the
renewable energy sector. We already
have an outstanding record on this
issue, thanks to the dedication of
thousands of experts who ensure that
risk assessments are carried out with
an unparalleled degree of
professionalism. These awards will
serve to encourage best practice, and
to ensure that this vital area of
expertise is recognised in an
appropriate manner."
Entries will be assessed by a judging
panel made up of representatives from
across the renewables and Health &
Safety industries. For more
information see page 85.

WIND UP
131.1 PER CENT
Wind power had its strongest
quarter yet earlier this year, with the
months April/June seeing generation
increase by 131.1 per cent compared to
the same period last year.
Whilst clearly the amount of energy
produced by wind will vary from year to
year, this is a strong demonstration of
the role that wind can play in meeting
the UKs growing energy demand.

14

www.renewableuk.com

Novice and expert sailors alike enjoyed

RenewableUKs annual regatta, sponsored by
RWE npower renewables

RENEWABLEUK SAILING REGATTA 2011

The annual RenewableUK regatta, sponsored and
organised by RWE npower renewables, was once
again a strong success, with 39 boats participating
in the event.

However, once everyone had got the hang of tacking,

the actual races went on without a hitch, barring
some lost spinnakers and a boat that had to limp
home early following mechanical problems.

The fleet left harbour under a damp mist, which gave

way to bright September sunshine before the races
began. A host of novice crews caused some
interesting spectacles during the practice race not
least several collisions and a fair degree of shouting!

The skippers provided by Sunsail proved more than

adequate to the job of showing landlubbers the
ropes, but the final top slot was taken by the joint
team fielded by Natural Power and SeaROC.
RenewableUK came a respectable eighth.

EASIER THAN EVER FOR PUBLIC TO INSTALL

SMALL WIND TURBINES
RenewableUK has welcomed the publication of the new rules governing the installation of small wind
turbines. The changes will introduce permitted development rights for small wind systems, which will make
it much easier and quicker for domestic users to install them. The new rights will come into effect in
December.
RenewableUK has been working with the Government to develop a new MCS Planning Standard, which
supports a General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) for small wind turbines. GPDOs allow people to
install small wind systems without the need to go through the long and cumbersome process of obtaining
planning permission.
The new planning standard also requires small turbines installed under GPDOs to meet a noise emission
limit of 42 decibels. The industry had advocated a limit of 45db.

news
ELECTRIC MOUNTAIN SEMINAR

NEW FACES AT
RENEWABLEUK

Dinorwig, Europe's largest

reversible pump hydroelectric
power scheme, is housed inside
the 'Electric Mountain' in Llanberis,
Snowdonia

Yana Bosseva has joined the onshore

team as a planning advisor, dealing with
all aspects of planning policy. For the
past three years she has worked for
private planning consultancies in
London, including Roger Tym &
Partners, on a range of policy and
development control projects.
Previously, Yana was employed at a
planning consultancy in New Zealand,
where her work included consulting for
Transpower the owners and operators
of the countrys national grid.

RenewableUK, alongside West Coast Energy, the

Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) and the John
Muir Trust, took part in a seminar held by the British
Mountaineering Council (BMC) at the Electric
Mountain in Llanberis, Snowdonia, to help determine their policy position on wind developments.
Whilst the initial presentations revealed a strong
diversity of opinion not least from REF, who

cheekily presented a graph of wind farm

capacity factors that started at 20 per cent
the discussion amongst the membership was
well informed and productive. The strongest
message heard from the BMCs membership was
the need for criteria on which wind farms the
BMC should take an interest in, and the principle
of assessing each development on a case-bycase basis.

RECORD AMOUNT OF ELECTRICITY FROM WIND POWER

Figures from the National Grid show that a recordbreaking amount of electricity was generated by
wind turbines on Tuesday, 6th September. National
Grid says it is the first time the wind industry has
achieved the 3,000-megawatt milestone.
At the peak time of 11.58am on 6th September 2011,
wind power generation reached 3,021 megawatts. At
that point in the day, wind power was supplying 7.2
per cent of the total amount of electricity on the grid.
It breaks the previous record set on 15 January this
year of 2,800 megawatts.
The overall statistics are even more impressive.
National Grid says the actual amount of electricity
generated during this period by wind was even higher
because a third of all wind turbine capacity in the

UK (32 per cent) is connected directly to local

electricity networks and not to the grid. Once that
extra 1,500 megawatts are taken into account, the
amount of electricity being generated reaches 4,500
megawatts, supplying more than 10 per cent of the
UKs electricity needs.
RenewableUKs Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, says:
These record-breaking figures show that wind energy
is providing ever-increasing amounts of electricity to
homes and businesses across the country. It makes a
strong case for installing even greater capacity, so that
we can make the most of the bountiful wind resource
we have in Britain. The benefits are clear we are
generating clean energy, cutting down on expensive
and insecure imports of fossil fuels, and creating tens
of thousands of jobs over the next decade.

Zoltan Zavody has joined the Grid

Policy Team, working on policy and
research to help ensure that renewables
receive a fair deal in terms of access to
the grid, and that they play their full
potential in ensuring energy security
and a balanced grid. Zoltan was
previously a consultant on European
energy efficiency policy, and before
that, worked for many years as strategy
manager at the Energy Saving Trust.
His understanding of the need to
reconcile dynamic demand with
variable generation should prove
valuable in making smart grids a reality.

www.renewableuk.com

15

news
NEW FACES AT
RENEWABLEUK

Alex Campbell has joined RenewableUK

as our new Onshore Development
Manager. Alexs immediate focus will
include responding to Government
consultations and overseeing various
research projects. Alex joins us following
his MSc in Climate Change and Policy
from the University of Sussex. He has
ten years experience in a number of
media and communications regulatory
policy roles at Ofcom and previously
Oftel. He has been closely involved with
the operation of multi-stakeholder
working groups and has worked with
government, industry and consumer
organisations tackling a wide range of
public policy issues.

Scroby Sands Offshore Wind Farm,Great Yarmouth. Photo: RenewableUK

RENEWABLEUK CHAIRMAN TO HEAD

INDUSTRY TASKFORCE
RenewableUKs Chairman, Andrew Jamieson, is to
head the new industry-led offshore wind
taskforce.
DECC committed to establishing the Offshore Wind
Cost Reduction Task Force in the Renewables
Roadmap published in July. The industry-led group,
which will also involve the Government and The
Crown Estate, will set out a path and actions for
bringing down the levelised cost of electricity from
offshore wind to 100 per megawatt hour (MWh).

Meabh Cormacain is the new Policy

and Communications Co-Ordinator at
NIRIG (Northern Ireland Renewables
Industry Group) a joint collaboration
between the Irish Wind Energy
Association and RenewableUK and is
based in Belfast. Since 2001, Meabh
has lived and worked in China, Brazil,
Ireland, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma,
initially teaching English and
subsequently project managing in
international development with an
emphasis on human rights, civil society
and governance. More recently, she
worked as Development Manager at
UnLtd, supporting social entrepreneurs
across Northern Ireland.

Andrew Jamieson, ScottishPower Renewables

Regulation and Markets Director and Chairman of
RenewableUK said: It is a privilege to be able to
accept this role. We have seen offshore wind deliver
on a significant scale in the UK within a
comparatively short time, but in order for the
sector to truly live up to its potential, cost of

BARCLAYS 100 MILLION FUND SUPPORTS RENEWABLE

ENERGY FARM PROJECTS
Barclays Bank has created a 100 million fund to
support renewable energy projects on UK farms.
The fund was developed with the National Farmers
Union (NFU) after a survey found that 37 per cent
of the UKs 200,000 farmers are seeking to cut their
energy bills and generate income using renewable
energy. It will be made available for solar, wind and
hydro projects in the UK, with projected feed-in
tariffs (FITs) included in the assessment of each
loan.
Over the years farmers have struggled with low
commodity prices and increasing costs, said Travers
Clarke-Walker, Product and Marketing Director for

16

www.renewableuk.com

electricity from offshore wind needs to come down.

The renewables industry welcomes the
Governments role in initiating the task force, and
will make sure that the outcome offers a set of
credible recommendations and actions on reducing
costs.

Barclays Business. Barclays has already supported

many farmers as they seek new ways of making
money. Renewable energy production offers farmers a
further opportunity to develop their businesses and
add to their traditionally vital roles of producing food
and managing the countryside.
In establishing the fund Barclays has worked closely
with a number of organisations, including the NFU,
Country, Land & Business Association and the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The organisations
will continue to be involved with the fund in an
advisory capacity and their views will be considered
when looking at individual loan applications.

news

Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and

Climate Change, confirmed that compensation
will be paid to offshore wind developers in areas
leased from The Crown Estate where fossil fuels
are discovered. Photo: RenewableUK

NEW FACES AT
RENEWABLEUK

David Krohn has recently joined the

offshore team in the role of Wave and
Tidal Energy Development Manager.
David has a Masters in Environmental
and Marine Pollution Law and a BSc in
Environmental and Geographical
Science from the University of Cape
Town. He has recently joined
RenewableUK from the Construction
Industry Research and Information
Association, where he was managing a
nuclear decommissioning stakeholder
dialogue, developing several proposals
dealing with aspects of the renewable
energy industry and supporting a
number of sustainability-related
initiatives.

CROWN ESTATE COMPENSATION AGREEMENT

RenewableUK has welcomed a ministerial
statement on compensation for offshore wind
developers in the event that reserves of fossil fuels
are located in areas leased from the Crown Estate.
The issue had been causing significant uncertainty
amongst prospective financiers for offshore
projects, as a result of a clause built into Crown

Estate leases that allows wind farm leases to be

terminated if oil and gas are discovered in the area.
Following seven years of lobbying by the industry,
Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State for Energy and
Climate Change, has confirmed that no lease will
be terminated without compensation being
provided to the holder, and guidance on this will be
produced shortly.

OFFSHORE WIND AND MARINE HEALTH & SAFETY ACCORD

In a landmark move, RenewableUK has published a
new health and safety accord dedicated to
addressing the specific challenges and
opportunities for the offshore wind and marine
energy sector. The accord is not only the first of its
type in the UK, but also a global first for the
renewable energy sector.

The Accord was drawn up by RenewableUKs Health

& Safety working groups primarily the Offshore
Wind and Marine Health & Safety group. It is the
result of active engagement with key stakeholders
such as the Health & Safety Executive, as well as
having the strong leadership and support of The
Crown Estate.

The Offshore Wind Marine Health & Safety Accord

underpins the associations commitment to help
members continue to make the UK the leading safe
and responsible jurisdiction in which to do business.
In particular, it provides opportunities to
demonstrate clear and visible leadership on Health
& Safety, showing that the industry is fully engaged
in self-regulation by taking a proactive stance to
prevent and minimise current and future risks.

RenewableUKs Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery,

says: The Accord demonstrates our unqualified
commitment to Health & Safety evidence that
this is, and always will be, our number one priority.
This has followed extensive engagement with
key stakeholders such as the Health & Safety
Executive and The Crown Estate. I would like to
appeal to all our members to support and sign up
to the Accord.

Peter Garrod has joined RenewableUK,

fulfilling the role of Health & Safety
Officer. Peter will be dealing primarily
with internal health and safety issues
but will also be responsible for
coordinating the health and safety
aspects of the organisations various
national events and conferences. Peter
spent five years in the Fire Service
before moving into the property
industry, where he was able to transfer
his skills to ensure a safe working
environment was enforced for the
companys employees and its tenants.

www.renewableuk.com

17

A PROVEN SUCCESS
Lewis Smith says onshore wind is thriving despite all the potential setbacks.

Onshore wind, for years the commercial face of

renewables, has more lately found itself in the
shadow of the developing offshore sector. Bigger
and more powerful turbines, spread over vast acres
of sea in futuristic vistas, have drawn attention
away from wind turbines on hills.
Equally, observers could be forgiven for thinking
that onshore developers are being thwarted at
every turn. Anti-wind groups have proliferated, the
level of planning consents has dropped and, with
the promotion of the Localism Bill and the
scrapping of regional renewables targets, it seems
matters could only worsen.
Yet for all the problems facing the sector,
companies are still expanding at a rate that other
industries can only envy; turbines are still being
constructed and planned, and investors continue
to put money into onshore wind developments.
It is, says Julia Lynch Williams, Managing Director
of RWE npower renewables, a very viable business
if done right, and this must remain the case for
many years to come , particularly given the very
challenging UK Government renewable energy
targets.
RWE npower renewables has been very successful
in achieving planning consent for its projects and,
as part of its strategy, is now selling a small
number of sites to raise additional capital.
We have disposed of a small number of our
consented onshore wind projects and will continue
to do so, she says. However, RWE Innogy (our
parent company) is fully committed to growth in
low-carbon technologies and has a current pipeline
of 17.3GW across Europe. The UK will play a
significant role in the delivery of this pipeline.

cautious and firm, but optimistic. Things are

getting tough but its still a market thats
interesting for us.
But she warns, There is no justification for ROCs
to be banded down for onshore due to cost
increases if this were to happen there would
be even more challenge for the industry, and
investment in onshore would slow down. This
could end up costing the consumer more.

Simon Christian, UK Director of ScottishPower

Renewables, accepts that offshore has grabbed the
limelight but that does not mean, he says, that
onshores value has diminished, nor that it is past
its best.
The onshore sector remains viable and healthy for
us. We are still developing more onshore wind
farms year on year, which has to be a good place
to be, he says.

She describes the planning process as not

completely seized but going grindingly slower,
noticeably slower. But she has some sympathy
with the planning authorities, pointing out that
they are under-resourced and facing serious
cutbacks.

Offshore has recently grabbed all the headlines

but actually its the onshore development and the
confidence for investors that will enable the
funding to be put into the offshore sector. While it
has been quieter recently, its still very important
for the overall renewables portfolio.

And she adds that, compared to the vast scale of

offshore projects, the smallness of many onshore
projects is itself an advantage because it means
there is more flexibility. Developers can let some
go ahead quickly whilst others are put on a
slow burn.

Every year I hear people say onshore is slowing

down and every year I listen to these comments.
But look at the developments we are funding.
Theres no slowdown at all. They might be getting
more difficult to get through the planning system,
but we are still finding more to develop, which has
to be healthy. We are very upbeat about the
onshore sector. It still has huge potential. Onshore
is a great sector to be in. Its continuing to grow;
its exciting to be in it. Yes, there are challenges,
but its still a good market to be in.

Onshore wind is proven. The construction risks

are lower than offshore. Onshore has benefits
associated with lower risk and greater flexibility. We
like the flexibility we get and proven organic growth.

Companies are still expanding at a rate that other

industries can only envy; turbines are still being
constructed and planned, and investors continue to put
money into onshore wind developments.

We are creating value. We are taking some to

market and have sold them as consented sites.
I think thats an industry first.
Two have been sold to a German company, with
options to buy another eight. In addition, RWE
npower renewables is itself currently constructing
five wind farms, with another five to follow, four of
which have already received capital approval.
More are coming through. From our point of view
its still strong, its still good, she adds.
Lynch Williams notes, however, that there has been
a step change in costs over the last eighteen
months, having arisen largely because so many
planned wind farms now have to go through
appeals to win consent. We are seeing inflationary
costs but the real step change is that we are
having to do things we didnt have to do, like
public inquiries and community funds.
It is getting hard. It is getting increasingly
frustrating, but I personally think we need to be

Mabey Bridge is the first company to manufacture wind turbine towers in the UK.

Photo: Mabey Bridge Ltd

www.renewableuk.com

19

A EUROPEAN LEADER IN RENEWABLES

The transmission of power from large,
offshore wind farms is a considerable
technical challenge similar to that faced by
oil exploration companies in the 1960s when
they first began to exploit offshore oil and
gas reserves in the North Sea. ABB has
followed in the path of those pioneers by
successfully delivering the first offshore highvoltage direct current (HVDC) schemes.
A remote wind farm could be connected with
either AC or HVDC. Depending on the size of
the wind farm, along with grid conditions, the
use of HVDC is applicable where the distance
to the connecting AC grid exceeds 40-70km.
With the constraints on space and weight in
offshore installations, ABBs HVDC Light
technology offers some important advantages,
since it is compact and lightweight compared
with other HVDC solutions.

BORWIN 1 WORLDS FIRST

HVDC LINK FOR AN OFFSHORE
WIND FARM
The worlds first HVDC link to connect an
offshore wind farm with an AC grid is the
For more information, log on to www.abb.com

20

www.renewableuk.com

BorWin 1 project. This 200km, 400MW link

connects the BARD Offshore 1 wind farm
located off Germanys North Sea coast to
the HVAC grid on the German mainland.

DOLWIN 2 WORLDS LARGEST

OFFSHORE HVDC SYSTEM
In August 2011, ABB won an order worth
around $1 billion from the Dutch-German
transmission grid operator TenneT to supply
a power link connecting offshore North Sea
wind farms to the German mainland grid.
This is the largest power transmission order
in ABB's history. It will deploy the worlds
largest offshore HVDC system with a rating
of over 900MW to transport power from the
400MW Gode Wind II and other wind farms
to an offshore HVDC Light converter station,
which will transmit the electricity to the
German coast via 135km of underwater and
underground cables.

Top: BorWin 1 wind farm

Right: BorWin 1 is the worlds first HVDC link
between an offshore wind farm and an AC grid

Whitelee Wind Farm is Europes largest operational wind farm, with 140 turbines. Photo: Scottish Power Renewables

ScottishPower Renewables developed and operates

Whitelee, about 15km south of Glasgow. With 140
turbines, producing enough electricity to supply up
to 180,000 homes, it is Europes largest wind farm.
Christian regards the popularity of the visitor
centre, which last year attracted 120,000 people,
as absolutely phenomenal and indicative of the
public support for onshore wind.
Such support is not always apparent from the high
proportion of wind farm proposals that are blocked
by local authorities. Mike Cheshire of Ecotricity
believes the rejections at local authority level
many overturned on appeal are in large part
down to the increasing organisation of the antiwind campaigners.
Coupled with the increasing professionalism in
terms of the organisation and networking of antiwind groups, weve seen the anti-wind movement
go from a small clutch of mildly concerned
residents, who you can engage with, to a hardened,
professional, organised campaign.
The claims that are being made and the misinformation thats going round, seem to be the
same that were made 15 years ago its noise, its
vibrations, its house prices, he says. But theyve
got smarter about it. It can feel like we are hitting
a brick wall at times. We have one project thats
been going for ten years, and its only two turbines
you could get a nuclear power station up quicker
than that.
Nevertheless, like many other people within the
industry he is convinced onshore wind has the
support of the silent majority. Moreover, for all the
obstacles the anti-wind campaigners put in the way
of developments, the onshore sector is still thriving.
In terms of projects at Ecotricity, we have got
almost double the amount in planning than we
have had up and running for the last fifteen years

that weve been going. In terms of our healthiness

weve got a great deal going on, he says. Ecotricity
has seventeen projects operational, six with
consent and awaiting construction, and twelve in
the planning system. Weve shown weve had
more projects approved than the national average.
We are in it for the long term.
Matt Partridge of REG Windpower has concerns
about the Governments rethink of the Renewables
Obligation, the Electricity Market Review and the
Localism Bill championed by the Conservatives.
Such a transition can cause uncertainty, which
unsettles investors, and the changes are far from
finished. But although there are problems, they
are not so extreme as to be able to undermine
onshore winds essential good health, he says. REG
Windpower, with ten operational projects, five
consented, and a dozen in planning, has at least
tripled its staff levels in eighteen months.
Its the day-to-day stuff that causes delay and
heartache, he says. We do worry about financial
support in the field and issues of localism. But then
you see that a quarter of generation capacity is to
be retired, and quite a lot will be replaced. Where
does that come from? Clearly the Government
isnt going to be building a lot of coal and gas
plants, unless they have CCS [Carbon Capture and
Storage] readiness built in, and thats expensive.
You look at nuclear and some of the most
advanced economies in the world are turning their
noses up at it, and thats quite apart from the
waste legacy.

There are opportunities with renewables. The UK

is clearly the windiest country in Europe. It would
be preposterous not to see wind energy take a
much bigger share of the energy sector.
RES (Renewable Energy Systems) is another
developer that, far from finding onshore wind
slowing down, is growing rapidly. Rachel Ruffle,
Development Director, says: Its still growing. We
are expanding and growing busier and busier. There
are still a lot of sites in the planning system that
we are hoping to develop, and there are still a
number of new sites. Its a really healthy sector
to be in at the moment.
She accepts that most large sites available to the
sector have already been developed, but she sees
plenty more opportunities with smaller sites and
repowering.
There is an ever-increasing need for energy,
regardless of what people think about climate
change and the need to tackle it, she says.
A lot of the focus is on the offshore sector
because of the long-term potential to deliver huge
capacity, but in terms of the here and now, whats
being done onshore is just as active, if not more
so. Onshore wind is a very sensible industry to be
in. There will be hiccups along the way, but there
always have been. We cant go building onshore
wind farms forever. The sites will, at some point in
the future, stop. But there is repowering and
movement to smaller sites, and we have enough
work to sustain us long beyond 2020.

"The UK is clearly the windiest country in Europe.

It would be preposterous not to see wind energy take a
much bigger share of the energy sector."
Matt Partridge, REG Windpower

www.renewableuk.com

21

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www.renewableuk.com

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
Jessica Shankleman looks at key areas singled out by developers as needing fresh policy input
if the country is to deliver on its targets.
When the Government published its Renewables
Roadmap earlier this year, onshore wind was
hailed as one of eight key technologies predicted
to make a major contribution to the low-carbon
energy mix until 2020 and beyond.
The UK currently has more than 4GW of
installed onshore wind capacity, and the
Department of Energy and Climate Change
(DECC) has set a target to increase that to
13GW by 2020, against an industry high
forecast of 19GW. We spoke to developers about
their key areas of concern.

PLANNING DELAYS
The planning process is often cited as the
biggest barrier to success. The vast majority of
projects currently awaiting planning permission
are smaller than 50MW, so will be decided by
local authorities rather than central government
or a devolved administration.
A Freedom of Information request by
commercial law firm McGrigors revealed that 48
per cent of all onshore wind farms in England
and Wales were refused planning permission in
2010, compared to just 29 per cent that were
rejected in 2005 and 33 per cent in 2009.

Jacqueline Harris, a partner at McGrigors, thinks

there is a growing belief amongst developers that
local authorities have hardened their stance, and
that too much priority is being given to local
objections despite wider climate change
objectives.
We are dealing with an increasing number of
complaints and appeals from wind farm developers
who are concerned that attitudes towards wind
energy are hardening, particularly at a local level,
where they feel they do not get a balanced
hearing, she says.
There is little willingness to consider the benefits
of renewable energy generation in context the
national interest is being overridden by local
concerns.
Some developers argue that the final decision
should not rest with elected councillors on
planning committees, but rather with elected
officials who would be less likely to be subject to
lobbying.
A RenewableUK report in 2009 revealed that
approval rates for onshore wind farms had sunk to
a historic low of just 25 per cent, but significantly,
approval rates at appeal, when the decision was

handed back to officials on the LPA, were running

at 62 per cent, more than twice the rate achieved
by the local councils that block wind farm planning
applications.
Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity, feels the planning
system is not fit for purpose, having had several
applications for new wind turbines held up for
years. A spokesman for the company says that
committee meetings often veer off topic, because
councillors are rolling over to the small number of
locals opposed to projects or simply fail to grasp
the technical details of the proposals.
Mark Barrett, Project Developer for Partnerships for
Renewables, says that, whilst it is understandable
that councillors are under pressure to please their
anti-wind farm constituents, the Government
should change the planning rules so the decisions
are not made by elected leaders.
Local councillors rely on support to be elected
next time, so they are put in a difficult position if
their neighbours are frequently banging on their
doors making their objections, he says.
But he argues that it is reductive to blame the
planning system for the low consent rates. I just
think its a cop-out to call it the planning system.

The vast majority of projects currently awaiting planning permission

are smaller than 50MW

Blades ready for lifting at Out Newton wind farm, East Yorkshire. Photo EON UK Renewables

www.renewableuk.com

23

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Its not a computer, its a group of human beings

that are making these decisions.

energy projects to keep the additional business

rates they generate as an incentive to back them.

He makes an interesting comparison with the

construction project for next years London
Olympic Games, which had little local input and
was completed on time and on budget.

The Government says it is also planning a new

National Planning Policy Framework for England,
which will include a new presumption in favour
of sustainable development, as well as a package
of measures that will streamline and simplify
planning applications in England, introducing a
guarantee that it would take no more than twelve
months to reach a final decision on planning
applications, including any associated appeal.

Barrett argues that the tight timescale for the

Olympics created a sense of urgency that does
not seem to exist for renewables, despite the
Governments stated concerns about climate
change and energy security.
The Government has a policy that is backed up by
the EU to deploy renewables but, for whatever
reason, they dont feel able to get that
implemented at a local level, he says.
If the Government is casting around for a reason
why renewable energy deployment is still low, then
they need to look no further than their own feet.
Its their policies and their responsibility for
implementing them.
In recognising that slow approval rates can increase
cost, delay or risk revenue, and could deter
developers from making applications in the first
place, or lead them to drop applications if initially
rejected, the Renewables Roadmap pledges to reform
the planning system for all onshore wind projects.
This includes the Localism Bill, allowing
communities a greater say in determining
applications and letting those that host renewable

However, it remains to be seen if the Localism Bill

will boost approval rates or will actually create
another barrier to growth.
Harris, at McGrigors, says the Bill could make it
even more difficult for wind farm developers to
secure planning permission in the future, as more
power is given to locals.
There is a concern that the Localism Bill could
make planning for onshore wind farms even harder
to obtain, she says.

Local residents seldom look sympathetically on

wind turbines close to their properties. Its likely
that any extension of the power of local residents
to influence the planning process will make getting
planning permission for wind farms in England and
Wales even harder.
Like Barrett, she argues that unless local
authorities give proper weight to the UKs national
renewable energy commitments, there could be
serious repercussions for the Governments
energy strategy.
Despite the climate change and renewables
agenda, when it comes to the crunch, local
interests seem to prevail. The localism agenda
might well encourage focus on local issues, but this
is an area where national leadership is needed.
Whilst the Government expects most of the
projects in the pipeline will be bigger than 5MW,
developers of small-scale projects are subject to
the same planning regulations, which can be
expensive for independent and community groups.

The Government says it is also planning a new

National Planning Policy Framework for England, which
will include a new presumption in favour
of sustainable development.

The Government is expected to bring in a law that would mean the smallest wind turbines do not need to go through the planning system. Photo: David Saxon / ECONNECT

www.renewableuk.com

25

26

www.renewableuk.com

Energy4All helps community groups set up their

own wind farms, and argues that finance is a major
barrier to success.
The community has to find anything from
100,000 to 1 million to file the initial planning
application, and then decide if it is worth trying to
fundraise more to appeal if the decision is turned
down by councillors.

Nant Bach Wind Farm. Photo: Katy Tuxworth / DULAS Ltd

She argues that the Government should give

priority to community wind farm projects in
application, to combat the politicised nature of
incentives for local planners to view community
schemes with more acceptance.

EXEMPT FROM PLANNING?

The Government is expected to bring in a law that
would mean the smallest wind turbines do not
need to go through the planning system and
would instead be granted permitted development
(PD) rights.
Unlike other small renewable energy technologies,
such as solar panels and heat pumps, small wind
turbines still do not benefit from permitted
development rights, which lift the requirements
for planning permission altogether.
Having overcome some legal technicalities, the
Government is expected to introduce legislation
later this year to allow roof-mounted and freestanding wind turbines to be permitted at
detached properties that are not in conservation
areas.
Andrew Cook, Director at Pegasus Planning,
predicts that PD rights will remove a tranche of
schemes from requiring planning, but the impact
on the pipeline would actually be limited. He
argues that the rule would mainly affect micro
wind turbines because of limits on tip heights.

Northumberland, and RAF Trimingham, Norfolk.

The Brizlee Wood replacement is being bought by
developers to allow North British Windpowers 48turbine Fallago Rig project to progress. However, a
mitigation solution could also unblock other wind
farms facing objections nearby.

AVIATION

Following trials, tests and installation, which would

be completed no sooner than 2012, the Lockheed
Martin radars would be located at the three RAF
sites, potentially paving the way for up to 8GW of
wind power.

Aviation constraints are one of the biggest hurdles

facing small wind developers, especially as
independent developers often cannot afford to invest
in expensive and emerging mitigation technology.
The problem is that wind turbines can reflect radar
waves, appearing on radar screens as clutter in an
unpredictable and confusing way. Even a 50kW
turbine can be picked up on screen.
According to the Governments Roadmap, most of
the 1.9GW of onshore wind farms that have been
awaiting construction for more than two years
are held up by the need for developers to meet
planning conditions related to radar.
RenewableUK estimates a full set of technical
solutions to all affected radars could cost up to
100 million, spread between now and 2020.
To this end, the Government has signed two
Memorandums of Understanding with stakeholders
such as the MoD, NATS and The Crown Estate, to
work with developers on a solution.

It is difficult to say how many wind farms may be

affected; however, the developers involved have
earlier estimated that up to roughly 68GW of
military aviation objections (onshore and offshore)
could be lifted by the deployment of these three
radar, dependent on final technical and
commercial decisions, a DECC spokesman says.

FEED-IN TARIFFS

completed by the end of 2011.

Andrew Cook argues that whilst the fast-track
review did not impact wind energy FiTs, it
nevertheless sent ripples of concern into the
onshore wind sector, creating investor uncertainty
that could continue even after the new rates are
confirmed.
The announcement generated nervousness
among developers, particularly entrepreneurial
developers, he says, adding that he has seen a
drop in investments since the announcement.
Some developers, for example, have scaled back
their original plans for a portfolio of projects to
just four or five.
He is now urging the Government not only to
complete the review soon, but also to keep the
new incentive rates in place, once completed, to
help rebuild confidence in the market.

Investor certainty has also been hampered by the

Governments surprise announcement last year that
it would launch a review of Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs).

Overall, the Renewables Roadmap has promised to

tackle a raft of problems facing onshore wind
developers, and RenewableUK welcomes its
stated ambition.

An initial fast track was primarily designed to cut

incentives for large solar farms that were
threatening to drain the limited pot of money
available, and a comprehensive review considering
all aspects of the scheme is expected to be

However, it remains to be seen if DECCs proposed

actions will be strong enough to turn around an
industry that is plagued by constraints, boost consent
rates and build gigawatts of new wind farms to help
combat climate change and boost energy security.

Through this process, industry and government are

now planning to replace three old RAF radar
systems, stretching from the Greater Wash to
southern Scotland.
DECC has revealed that new Lockheed Martin
long-range radars, costing about 20 million each,
are expected to replace old systems at Staxton
Wold, North Yorkshire, Brizlee Wood,

"Some developers have scaled back their original plans for a

portfolio of projects to just four or five."
Andrew Cook, Pegasus Planning

www.renewableuk.com

27

WHAT DOES IT MEAN

TO DEVELOPERS ON THE GROUND?
Jennifer Webber, Head of Public Affairs at RenewableUK, explains how the Government's new Localism Bill
is likely to affect renewable energy developers.
The Localism Bill, introduced in December 2010, is
the crystallisation of Coalition thinking about
devolution of power from the State. It follows on
from Conservative Party papers produced in
opposition, such as Control Shift: Returning Power
to Local Communities, and along with the recently
published National Planning Policy Framework sets
the guidance for planning throughout England, and
in some cases Wales.
At the time of writing, the Bill is scheduled to
enter its Report Stage at the House of Lords,
followed by a Third Reading; then the Bill will
return to the House of Commons for them to
consider any amendments made by the Lords.
Royal Assent is expected in October/November,
and the provisions contained within the Bill will
then come into force some time afterwards.
The Bill is something of a behemoth published in
two volumes due to its length and has been
described as several Bills in one. It contains
sections devoted to local government, EU fines,
non-domestic rates, community empowerment,
planning, housing, London, compensation for
compulsory acquisition, and general issues, and
also contains 25 detailed schedules.
Even before the Bill was published, RenewableUK
were engaging with the Bill team, and were pleased
to see that some of the areas around which
concerns were expressed, such as third-party right
of appeal, did not make it into the published Bill.
Nevertheless, within the local government,

community empowerment and planning sessions

there was plenty we wanted to engage with.
The Bill changes planning at every level, and
RenewableUK has worked with the Bill team,
ministers, Coalition backbenchers and the
Opposition to raise awareness of our concerns.
Some of this work has been done in collaboration
with other organisations, ranging from NGOs to
business groups, and has been overseen by a
Localism Bill Working Party, made up of relevant
members from RenewableUK strategy groups, subgroups and the Board.

NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING
Neighbourhood Planning is a new idea introduced
by the Bill, allowing communities to get more
closely involved in the planning process. Groups,
known as neighbourhood forums can come
together to draw up neighbourhood plans. The
plans are then voted on, and if they receive a
majority in favour, are assimilated into the local
development plan.
Initially, the Bill stated that these neighbourhood
forums should consist of a minimum of three

people who lived or wanted to live in the area.

Fearing this could lead to an unbalanced make-up,
RenewableUK pushed an amendment stating that
they should consist of a minimum of 20 people
(based on the success of our strategy groups in
determining policy) and that these participants
should have to live in the area. As the Bill currently
stands, the Government have increased the number
of participants to 21 and strengthened provisions
to ensure that they live in, have businesses in, or
are fully representative of the area.
The role of local businesses has also been greatly
enhanced in neighbourhood planning and forums.
However, this role has yet to be defined and
RenewableUK will be working closely with regulators
on ensuring that this is a positive development.
The Bill also introduces neighbourhood
development orders. These allow for the area
to specify certain types of development they
welcome, and therefore do not need planning
permission for. This is designed to encourage
positive development in areas that feel they need
certain types of infrastructure, for example
housing, and to be in coherence with the strategic
policies of the areas, as well as national objectives.

The role of local businesses has also been greatly enhanced in

neighbourhood planning and forums. However, this role has yet to be
defined and RenewableUK will be working closely with regulators on
ensuring that this is a positive development.

The Neighbourhood Planning part of the Bill allows communities to become more
closely involved in the planning process. Photo: RenewableUK

www.renewableuk.com

29

C O M P A N Y

P R O F I L E S

A EUROPEAN LEADER IN RENEWABLES

Statkraft is Europes leading generator of
renewable energy and a major investor in the
UK. As an independent generator, Statkraft
invests in major renewable energy projects,
contributing to meet the UKs climate change
and energy security ambitions.

Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm

under construction, with first power
already delivered to the Grid

The Statkraft group develops and generates

hydropower, wind power, gas power and district
heating, and is a major player on the European
energy exchanges. Headquartered in Norway,
Statkraft is active in more than 20 countries.
Statkraft has over 100 years experience of
delivering clean energy and opened its first UK
office in London in 2006. The company already
operates hydropower and onshore wind power
plants in the UK and is a significant market
actor in trading and origination, marketing the
power from its own projects and third-party
renewable power projects.
The company owns and operates three
hydropower plants and one wind farm in
Wales. In Scotland, Baillie Wind Farm is under
construction with local partners, and a
number of other onshore projects are under
development.

As Europes leader in renewable energy,

Statkraft is committed to a long-term
industrial role within offshore wind power in
the UK. In partnership with Statoil, Statkraft
is in the process of constructing the 317MW
Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm off the
coast of Norfolk. The wind farm has already
delivered power to the Grid and will be in
operation next spring.

Furthermore, the company has been granted a

licence to develop Europes largest offshore
wind zone, Dogger Bank (9GW), as a part of the
Forewind consortium. Dogger Bank is likely to
be the worlds largest offshore wind project. It
will make a major contribution to meeting the
UKs climate change and energy security
ambitions, and will strengthen the development
of a supply-chain industry in the UK.

For more information, log on to: www.statkraft.com

BASF ADMIXTURE ASSISTS CONSTRUCTION AT ARECLEOCH

ScottishPower Renewables Arecleoch windfarm
is Scotlands fourth largest windfarm, producing
120MW of power through its 60 turbines,
enough for about 70,000 homes. The 42
million windfarm project was a huge logistical
challenge as it lies within 24km of commercial
forest plantations.
Approximately 617ha of trees were felled
during construction, initially to clear the way
for the 65km of access roads and the 60
turbine locations. The second phase of
forestry works cleared over 450ha of the
remaining trees.
At first there was only a single access to the
site, through a 2.5 metre-wide stone railway
arch, with the main railway line from
Stranraer to Ayr running overhead. Once
access and deliveries had been monitored by
Network Rail to ensure the integrity of the
arch structure, a further 2.5 miles of stone
track were added to reach the site compound.
To alleviate this and provide an access route for
turbine deliveries, a new railway overbridge was
constructed at a different location along the
main access road. This upgraded a 20km stretch
of the forestry road network and avoided local
village Barrhill as well as the railway.

Concrete pour

The 70,000m3 of stone required for the access

roads came from quarries on site. Borrowpits
were carefully planned to ensure the most
efficient balance of haul distances against
development costs. The roads were mainly of
a floating construction due to the very low
bearing strength of the peat.
The concrete for the project, which came
from local supplier Barr Limited, used BASF
admixture Glenium 126, a versatile

For more information, log on to: www.basf-cc.co.uk

30

www.renewableuk.com

admixture suitable for delivering high-quality

ready-mix concrete at any time to the job
site. It supports the production of a concrete
with a low water-cement ratio that meets EN
206-1 without loss of workability, and results
in easier placing and improved concrete
surfaces. At the height of the project, Barr
supplied over 1,000m3 of concrete a week,
enabling the site team to pour three of the
350m3 reinforced concrete foundations
each week.

LOCAL PLANNING
New Local Development Plans will come into
force, which, as discussed above could include
elements of the neighbourhood plan.
The Bill also introduces a new pre-application
regime designed to bring major infrastructure
projects decided locally into a regime similar to
that of the Infrastructure Planning Commission
(IPC). Decisions are still being taken as to what the
thresholds will be, but the proposal put out for
consultation stated that it should be decided on
area, rather than a megawatt approach , meaning
that most onshore wind projects would not be
captured under the new regime.
There are also a number of new duties within the
Local Planning Regime or for local planning
authorities. Key amongst these is the introduction
of referendums. Non-binding referendums are
introduced for any subject considered to be a local
issue. Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects
being considered by the IPC, therefore, we
understand, will be exempted. However, for Local
Planning Strategies and decisions, there is a
possibility of referendums being held.
The process for a referendum is that five per cent
(or lower should the local authority deem it
necessary) of the population of an area (county,
ward or district) needs to sign a petition calling for
a referendum. There is six months allowed for
them to garner the signatories needed. There is
also a route via which local councillors can request
a referendum. Once a completed petition is
received, the proper officer of the authority has a
currently unspecified period to determine whether
or not to hold the referendum if it relates to
certain conditions such as planning. Once that
decision has been made, the Local Authority has
twelve months in which to hold the referendum.
RenewableUK has been extremely concerned
about these provisions throughout, feeling that
they could introduce investment uncertainty and
severe delays into the planning system, forcing
developers to appeal for non-determination, and
increasing local tensions. We, alongside other
development organisations, have therefore been

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

calling for the complete exemption of planning

from referendums. In response, the Government
introduced an amendment at Lords committee
stage, which makes referendums on planning
discretionary. However, we feel that this places
local authorities under significant pressure to hold
a referendum, and complete exemption is the only
way to guarantee investment and much-needed
infrastructure.
Another new provision is around Assets of
Community Value. Local authorities can designate
assets as being of community value in response to
community nominations. Once this is done, if the
asset is to be sold, there needs to be a moratorium to
allow the community to bid for the asset if they wish.
The thinking behind this is to protect things that
are of great value to communities, such as local
post offices. However, there have been concerns
that some development could be hindered by
overzealous designation of land, and calls to
exclude land from the designation have been
made, which RenewableUK is supportive of. The
provisions only apply to leases of 25 years or more,
or sales of land.
In addition, the rules on Predetermination change
with councillors not being held to have a closed
mind just because they have previously expressed
an opinion on something. This is said to be a
clarification of existing rules, and as such could be
useful in that it will provide councillors with surety
that they are able to discuss applications that
come before them. However, concern has been
expressed about what the new definition of a
closed mind is, and this will require careful
discussion as regulations are established.

provision, which urges local authorities to work

together on strategic priorities, allows one of the
options to be some form of output but does not
make it compulsory. In addition, the Local
Development Plans need to demonstrate
coherence, and thereby work together, if they are
to be deemed valid by the Planning Inspectorate. If
not, they fail and the Presumption in Favour of
Sustainable Development, which is contained
within the National Planning Policy Framework, is
held to be the basis by which Local Authorities
should make their decisions.

NATIONAL PLANNING
There have been attempts to keep changes in
national planning fairly minor, in order not to
disrupt Nationally Significant Infrastructure
Projects currently in the system. The Infrastructure
Planning Commission is abolished, but replaced by
a new body provisionally known as the Major
Infrastructure Planning Unit which will assess
projects according to the National Policy
Statements and then put in advice to the relevant
Secretary of State (which will be Energy and
Climate Change for energy projects). The Secretary
of State then signs off on the project and grants or
refuses consent. There are also detailed transition
arrangements for projects currently in the system,
to avoid any disruption.

WHERE DOES THE BILL COVER?

As planning is a devolved issue, the Bill in the main
applies to England only. However, certain
provisions do also apply in Wales. Key amongst
these are predetermination, assets of community
value, and major infrastructure projects, in terms of
the abolition of the IPC.

LARGER-THAN-LOCAL PLANNING

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

As stated in the run-up to the General Election

of 2010, the Conservative Party does not believe
in the regional tier of planning, and this Bill gets
rid of regional spatial strategies and regional
targets.

At the time of writing the Bill has still not

concluded its journey through the Houses of
Parliament. However, once it has, that is not the
end of the story, with a host of consultations on
regulations about different issues. There is also a
belief that the new system will take some time to
bed in, and we may yet see a lot of test cases
and accrued knowledge in terms of what will stand
in plans.

Recognising that some areas need to be considered

at a more strategic level, the Bill introduces a Duty
to Cooperate on Sustainable Development. This

A RenewableUK Planning Seminar at Camber Wind Farm, Sussex. Photo: RenewableUK

www.renewableuk.com

31

SMALL WIND AT
THE HEART OF RURAL ENGLAND
Ben Alcraft, RenewableUKs Publications Editor, visits Beech Tree Farm to look at their small wind project.

When Craig Birch sent me an email saying, If you

have any trouble finding us, my brother has a
mobile I wondered what I was letting myself
in for. But arriving at the aptly named Beech Tree
Farm, in the heart of rural Leicestershire, I began to
understand why Birch would be happy to distance
himself from the frantic world of personal, mobile
communication to which Ive slowly become
accustomed.

Craig Birch with the Endurance E-3120 turbine which he has

recently installed at his sustainable farm
in Leicestershire. Photo: Ben Alcraft

The combination of clean air, open space and

gently sloping, grassy knolls was enough to keep
the eyes and ears occupied for a lifetime. And as if
that wasnt enough, theres everything else that
Birch and his farm have going on a man I quickly
realised was a poster boy for ethical land use and
sustainability; a new generation of farmer,
determined to diversify and build a better, cheaper,
renewable future.
He pulled up at the turbine in a ubiquitous but
unassuming truck. Only this truck was a little bit
special, converted to run on Pure Plant Oil (PPO)
made from waste cooking oil from the farms own
oilseed rape production or sourced from a local
supplier. Once youve stopped the truck, he
explained, the engine needs to run on for a
couple of minutes so the cooking oil doesnt cool
and gets flushed out by the diesel. This seemed an
appropriate procedure for a place exuding a calm
and steady pace. You might be waiting a little
while for things to get going or fully mature, but
when they do theyre done well and with style.
The farms sloe gin production only added to its
character.
In the background I could hear the gentle hum of
a tractor, busily piling green waste from local
councils into the compost pit, which produces 70
to 80 per cent of the fertiliser used on the farms
arable land. Another one of their sustainable
credentials, this enables them to save energy and
reduces landfill, minimising the impact on the
environment; not to mention adding another
revenue stream to their burgeoning portfolio.
But its not all about profit theyve also taken
pains to encourage a cornucopia of birds to their
property, and have counted 76 species in total, an
enviable array of wildlife that would impress even
the likes of Bill Oddie.
To encourage this, they only trim the hedges once
every three to five years which, according to the
RSPB, produces thirteen times more fruit than
those trimmed annually. To encourage other
wildlife, theyve also grown wild grass margins

alongside all of the rivers and ditches on the farm.

This acts as a buffer, helping to protect the water
quality in their rivers.
The latest sustainable venture is a 50kW
Endurance E-3120 turbine, which has been up and
running for three months: not quite long enough
to accurately determine whether it will meet its
annual target of 140,000kWh. But at the time of
writing the cumulative energy totalled 31,047kWh,
a significant amount in what should have been the
stillest months of the year: June, July and August.
The turbine was a slight gamble, confessed Birch,
as problems with wind speed measurements
hampered an accurate reading at the early stages.
But the gamble seems to have paid off, with an
average speed of about 6m/s being recorded. The
latest turbine statistics, taken from a screen grab
at Birchs home, show a speed of 7.1m/s; very
encouraging as we entered the second half of the
year and the windier, more efficient months.
The planning process took about nine months
from first contact with Aeolus Power to gaining
planning consent, and it took another four months

for the installation. Planning encountered a degree

of opposition from a small, vocal minority.
Christine Griffiths, Director of Aeolus Power
(Wind-Energy), who supplied and installed the
Beech Tree Farms turbine, said, Obtaining planning
permission is still the most difficult and the most
time consuming part of the wind turbine
installation process. We have links with planning
consultants across the UK to guide our customers
through the precise requirements of the planning
officers within their areas, but the process can still
be arduous. Sticking points included shadow flicker
and the protection of bats in and around their land.
The shadow flicker argument, as Birch puts it, was
based on ignorance, coming from complainants
living in a village whose boundaries lay at least 600
metres from the site, far out of reach.
The bats issue, on the other hand, was something
that Beech Tree Farm took more seriously,
consulting with Natural England about the
turbines proximity to hedgerows. A condition was
built into planning approval that bat activity in the

Onshore wind technology continues to develop at an extraordinary rate and its encouraging to see that
farmers are taking to small wind technology with such vigour and enthusiasm. If farmers like Craig Birch
can spread the word and encourage others in their local areas to install wind power (with the support of
government and the wider industry), then onshore deployment can continue to expand.
www.renewableuk.com

33

Endurance wind turbine at Beech Tree Farm. Photo: Ben Alcraft

area was monitored; and results have shown that

although there was some limited activity close to
the turbine, they tended to use the hedgerows as
a corridor and no threat has been identified.
The high-tech nature of the control centre that
Endurance built is quite a contrast to the ancient
land that surrounds it, which Birch and
his family have been farming for twenty rapidly
changing years. There is a wireless transmitter
on the tower, perpetually sending all of the
information remotely, allowing access from any
internet terminal. This includes remote access
from Canada, where Endurance is based, enabling
them to monitor the situation and rapidly flag up
any technical issues.
However, now that interest in the UK small wind
market has moved on apace, Endurance has plans
to build a facility on this side of the pond. Their
CEO, Glenn Johnson, stated publicly in his
keynote speech at the RenewableUK Small Wind
Conference in April, that there is intent for
Endurance to open a UK-based manufacturing
facility, possibly as early as 2012. A spokesman
for the company added: Any plans to do so
would be contingent on stability and
predictability in the FiT [Feed-in Tariff] scheme.
Any investment being considered will be weighed
against any potential risk associated with that
investment. If the rates for small wind remain
competitive and there is an indication for long-

term stability, then Endurance is willing to take

that risk and make an investment. Once located
in the UK, Endurance anticipates supplying the
entire European market from its UK-based
manufacturing facility.
The farm is currently looking into getting a
second turbine, which will stand taller and
prouder on a proposed 36m tower. Birch is
concerned, as many are, about the ongoing FiT
review, and questions whether they will be able
to make a second turbine pay for itself in the
long term.
However, Christine Griffiths is confident that the
situation will remain tenable, adding: The Feedin Tariffs have proved to be an effective way to
meet DECCs aim of encouraging more smallscale (less than 5MW) low-carbon generation by
individuals, communities and organisations not
usually engaged with the electricity market. This
is nowhere better illustrated than in the farming
community, which is steadily embracing the
installation of wind turbines.
Any amendments to the current FiTs, as they
apply to individual wind turbines of 50kW in size
and smaller, are likely to be minimal; a farmer or
landowner siting an efficient, powerful turbine on
a windy part of their land is precisely the kind of
uptake that DECC wants to encourage, and in
May 2011 the FiT payments for small-scale wind

were increased in line with inflation [Retail Price

Index].
In 2006, in Leicestershire and Rutland, DEFRA
recorded 6,450 people working as farmers,
managers and farm labourers on 2,719 farms with
192,181 acres (777.73km2) of farmed land. If a
small portion of those working on farmed land can
be persuaded that wind is an essential part of the
energy mix, by farms such as Beech Tree, then
small wind will be able to realise the potential that
Endurance and Aeolus clearly believe it has. Birch
also remains optimistic about the future, and
continues to try to work in harmony with nature.
As he put it, you can be progressive, increase value
and be sustainable at the same time. Theres no
need to look at old ways of doing things, even
green ways of doing things.
Onshore wind technology continues to develop
rapidly and its encouraging to see that farmers
are taking to small wind with such vigour and
enthusiasm. The recent announcement that
Barclays have launched a 100 million fund for
farmers investing in renewable energy is a sure
sign that its an investment worth making. And
with Government announcing the General
Permitted Development Order (GPDO), allowing
people to install small wind without the need for
a long and cumbersome planning process, it has
never been easier to install small wind turbines
on your land.

If the rates for small wind remain competitive and there is an indication for long-term stability, then
Endurance is willing to take that risk and make an investment. Once located in the UK, Endurance
anticipates supplying the entire European market from its UK-based manufacturing facility.
www.renewableuk.com
www.bwea.com

35

36

www.renewableuk.com

IRELAND AND THE ALL ISLAND FRAMEWORK

Irelands wind power is coming on in leaps and bounds, with significant growth anticipated in the next few years.
In the first of a RealPower series, Ben Backwell, Senior Correspondent at Recharge News, looks at the state of its
industry and the export potential of an all islands approach.
The Republic of Ireland is set to become one of
Europes top wind power producers in terms of the
proportion that wind makes up of its total power
generation. Sector officials say that the country is
likely to become a major green power exporter,
boosted by new interconnections with the UK, and
offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea.
Irelands installed wind capacity was 1.428GW in
2010, compared to 1.31GW in 2009 and just
795MW in 2007. The European Wind Energy
Association (EWEA) expects Ireland to reach 6GW
of capacity in 2020 in its base scenario and 7GW
in its high scenario, accounting for 51.9 and 60.5
per cent respectively of total power generation,
compared to 12.9 per cent at the end of 2010.
Michael Walsh, Chief Executive of the Irish Wind
Energy Association (IWEA), says he thinks the
sector could go higher, and easily reach
1011GW by 2020. We have very attractive sites
onshore and offshore that are very close to the
UK, he says. He describes the fact that the UK
and Irish governments are now taking an all
islands approach as very positive.
We need to look at where we can produce most
efficiently. We can help the UK meet its targets,
because Irish wind is a lot cheaper than a lot of
other options that are currently in the mix.
Walsh admits that Ireland has seen a very
disappointing build-out of wind farms over the

last couple of years, despite its potential. Ireland

added just 118MW of wind in 2009 according to
the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA),
whilst installations so far in 2011 have also
been slow.

consideration given to benefit or cost to the

economy. Discussions on a new regime have
centred on proposals that would allow re-ordering
the queue based on projects commercial, technical
and environmental feasibility, industry officials say.

The biggest problem has been not being able to

implement the countrys planned REFIT Feed-in
Tariff scheme, although the financial crisis that
engulfed Ireland in 2008/9 also played its part.
Ireland sent its renewables support package
which foresees supporting 3GW of onshore wind
to the EU for approval under state aid rules in
2007. Walsh calls the long wait that the sector has
faced as a result very frustrating.

The clouds of the financial crisis appear to be

clearing at least over Ireland banks are increasing
their willingness to finance wind projects again, and
Walsh expects the sector to come back strongly
from the second half of next year. Developers are
waiting to give the green light to a backlog of
around 600MW of projects as soon as progress has
been made on the outstanding regulatory issues.
If we can get the policy in place, we can get build
rates of 700 or 800MW per year, says Walsh.

You have EU targets on the one hand and then

another branch of the Commission holding things
up on the other, he says. Support under Irelands
previous mechanisms is fully subscribed.

IWEA points to a series of major announcements

over the last couple of months as a sign of how
attractive developers and manufacturers see
Ireland in the mid term.

IWEA now expects EU approval of the REFIT

scheme imminently. As soon as approval is
received, the Irish Government needs to move as
quickly as possible to pass secondary legislation
and allow stalled wind projects to go ahead.
Reform to Irelands cumbersome grid access
regime is also due to be completed in the coming
weeks. Under the existing first come, first served
regime, projects are granted access to the grid
based solely on the order of application, with no

Chinese-owned turbine manufacturer XEMC

recently signed an agreement to supply turbines
to Irish wind developer Gaelectric in a deal worth
18 million euros ($26m). XEMC will install its
22.5MW XV90 turbines at three onshore sites in
Ireland, with total capacity of 13.6MW. It is the
Chinese companys first sale to Europe. The two
companies have also signed a letter of intent to codevelop Gaelectrics remaining wind energy projects
in Ireland and the US.

Island Shippings support vessel, Island Tiger at Arklow Bank. Photo: Island Shipping

www.renewableuk.com

37

OFFSHORE ENGINEERING CONSULTANCY

Xodus Group is an international engineering consultancy
specialising in oil and gas, offshore wind and other offshore
renewables.
The company adds value to its clients projects throughout
the lifecycle including: EIA and consenting, conceptual
engineering, pre-FEED, FEED, detailed design, project
management and implementation, O&M strategy and plans,
and decommissioning.
They also support their clients in all aspects of low-carbon
business including: strategic advice, project bankability, lenders
and owners engineer, due diligence, and risk quantification
and management.
The company has over 400 employees, including specialist
engineers and consultants, covering the complete range of
disciplines needed by clients. These include: structural, electrical
and controls, geotechnical, cost modelling and project
economics, marine physics, environmental, health and safety,
vibration dynamics, vessels, construction, finance, value decision
and risk support.
Clients include developers, suppliers and investors.
Recent highlights include taking many offshore projects through
to consent; acting as advisors to three UK Round 3 offshore
wind developers; being part of the Owner-Engineer team for
Fishermans Energy (USA); supporting Statoils Hywind floating
turbine pilot project; and researching new approaches to
geophysical site investigation.
For more information visit: www.xodusgroup.com

38

www.renewableuk.com

Brian Britton, General Secretary of National Offshore Wind Association of Ireland and Simon McKeever, Director of Trade and Investment at the British Embassy
at the Launch of the National Offshore Wind Association of Ireland Conference. Photo: NOW Ireland

In July, Dublin-based Mainstream Renewable Power

announced plans to buy up to 1GW of turbines for
Irish wind projects from Chinas leading
manufacturer Sinovel.
Under the agreement, the partners are initially
looking to build 1GW of onshore capacity in Ireland,
with MRP in charge of the development work and
Sinovel providing turbines and technology. Machines
will be supplied from China at first, although Sinovel
the worlds second-largest turbine maker has
hinted that it may open a production facility in
Ireland, if the Irish Government continues to show
its commitment to wind power. Part of the
estimated 1.5 billion euros ($2.2 billion) needed to
build 1GW in Ireland may come from the China
Development Bank, officials say.
The fact that people like XEMC and Mainstream
are taking a strategic view of Ireland is great, says
Walsh, adding that Ireland has one of the best
resources, is one of the best places for foreign
direct investment and is well placed to export
power to other markets.

ALL ISLANDS APPROACH OPENS DOOR

TO POWER EXPORTS
A series of initiatives being developed by the UK
and Irish Governments will open the way for largescale power exports from Ireland and help the UK
meet its renewable targets in the coming years.
Senior politicians from England, Scotland and

Ireland met at the British-Irish Council in June and

unveiled their all islands approach to renewables,
which foresees benefiting from the strengths of
the wind, wave and tidal resources of different
regions that have hitherto been seen as separate,
including Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel
Islands. The proposals centre upon the construction
of several new subsea interconnectors between
Ireland and mainland UK.
The growth of Irelands wind sector has been limited
by its small domestic power market, despite its
formidable resource, with the countrys largest utility
Electricity Supply Board (ESB) warning that the
country will soon face a period of excess capacity,
mainly because of the growth of renewables.
Meanwhile, UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry
noted recently that the west coast of Ireland has
some of the best wind resources in Europe yet no
offshore wind farms. Irelands only existing
offshore wind facility is the seven-turbine Arklow
Bank array in the Irish Sea.
The Irish market for electricity is less than a tenth
of that in Britain, says Hendry, adding, Companies
cannot afford to build wind farms in Ireland
because there is no market for their power. We
want to put that right.
The only interconnector currently linking the Irish
and UK grids is the 250MW Moyle line running
between Northern Ireland and Scotland, whilst

Irish grid operator EirGrid is building a 500MW link

between Fingal County and North Wales, which
will be finished in 2012.
Now, the UK and Irish Governments are currently
carrying out detailed analysis of new links, and
hope to see the first new interconnector projects
launched by 2013.
IWEAs Walsh says that, as well as new interconnectors, developers are also likely to build
projects in the Irish part of the Irish Sea and build
connections to the UK.
Work still needs to be done on how power sales
from Irish projects into the UK can work most
efficiently, either by such projects benefiting
from the UK support scheme directly or being
supported by Ireland and then paid for by the
renewable credit transfer system, which is foreseen
under EU legislation governing the countrys 2020
targets.
There is still a bit to be done, and it is important
that the UKs Electricity Market Reform allows this
to happen, says Walsh. But the building blocks
are there already.
Irish developers will also be able to use the UKs
own growing connections to continental Europe,
to export to the rest of the EU, as a long-awaited
unified power market and the Supergrid come
into being.

The clouds of the financial crisis appear to be clearing at least over Ireland banks are increasing their
willingness to finance wind projects again, and Walsh expects the sector to come back strongly from the
second half of next year.
www.renewableuk.com

39

40

www.renewableuk.com

ONSHORE WIND SUPPLY SEMINAR

Rhys Thomas, Supply Chain Policy Officer, RenewableUK, reports on the recent joint seminar for new entrants or
companies expanding into the onshore wind supply chain.
A review of issues facing onshore wind reveals that
planning, grid and noise are always high on the
agenda. For offshore wind, significant focus has
been on the challenges facing the supply chain as
it gears up to meet the increasing European
ambitions for deployment. But when it comes to
the onshore wind supply chain, the role that UK
companies have in this sector is often overlooked.
The mistaken assumption is frequently that
onshore wind farms are lock, stock and barrel
imported into the UK, and that the market is too
small and lumpy to engage a manufacturing
supply chain.
Yet the UK is one of the largest markets for
onshore wind in Europe, and despite being a slow
starter it was 2005 before installed capacity
saw a significant ramp-up following the earlier
introduction of the Renewables Obligation - the
UK does have success stories in the onshore wind
supply chain. Therefore, to recognise this,
RenewableUK, in conjunction with the Department
of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), held a
seminar in June, at which attendees could hear
from expert players that are already benefiting
from being part of the UKs onshore wind supply
chain and understand the challenges faced by new
entrants and by established companies seeking
to grow.
The seminar, attended by over 130 delegates, was
introduced by Energy Minister, Charles Hendry, and
RenewableUK CEO, Maria McCaffery. Hogan
Lovells International LLP kindly hosted the seminar
and subsequent networking event at their Central
London offices on Holborn Viaduct. The format
of the seminar featured opening remarks from
Charles Hendry and Maria McCaffery, with a
question and answer session, followed by two
plenary sessions: the first focusing on the UK
onshore wind market opportunities, followed by
a session exploring the export opportunity.
McCafferys opening remarks emphasised that there
is an urgent need for onshore wind, which is the
most commercially mature form of renewable
energy generation, to significantly expand if the UK
is to meet its low-carbon targets. With 4GW of
capacity already installed and another 11GW to be
delivered over the next decade to meet the 2020
targets, it was ironic, McCaffery remarked, that the
project pipeline has been made even bigger with
almost 7GW currently stuck in the planning system.
McCaffery countered the often-used assumption
that there are no benefits from onshore wind
captured by UK plc, quoting that, according to
industry sources, approximately 30 per cent of the
capital expenditure for UK onshore wind farms is
spent in the UK.
She maintained, however, that for the UK to build
upon the companies showcased in the seminar, it
needs a healthy long-term onshore market to
2020 and beyond and that obstacles that are
within the Governments power to resolve, such as

RenewableUK Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery and Charles Hendry, Minister for Renewable Energy, introduce the
joint DECC/RenewableUK Onshore Wind Supply Seminar held in June. Photo: Matthew Pulzer

uncertainties about financial support mechanisms,

planning delays and problems with grid access,
must be removed.
Energy Minister Charles Hendry emphasised the
need for community benefits to be associated with
onshore wind projects, and welcomed the recently
introduced RenewableUK code of practice. He also
predicted that proposals to retain initial business
rates at the local level, rather than the current
system in which all business rates go to central
government, would play a key part in gaining the
support of the silent majority who are neither
passionate for or against the proposed
developments.

of the Minister. Gordon Edge, RenewableUK

Director of Policy, chairing the session, kicked off by
asking the Minister how the Government could
support companies that wished to diversify into the
wind industry. Hendry emphasised that support
would be available at the local, rather than national
level, and the establishment of Local Enterprise
Partnerships will mean that the priorities of
specific geographical areas can be addressed.

Hendry also predicted that the nature of the

debate on renewable energy will shift in the future,
with the role that wind power can provide in
increasing the UKs security of energy supply and
affordability becoming more influential. On
affordability, Hendry noted that he could not
predict what the price of gas would be in 2012,
2020, 2030 or 2050. However, he could predict
what the price of wind energy would be, and this
stability and predictability was an important part
of the Governments assessment of affordability.

The localism theme continued with the response

to the next question, which raised concerns that
the introduction of third-party rights of appeal
and referendums would lead to further delays
on top of those already experienced. Hendry
emphasised that the National Policy Statements
would require determination within a year, and
that the preference of developers would be to
have a clear yes or no decision within a year,
rather than a continued state of indecision. He
also predicted that, given time, public pressure
would start to change, as communities observe
the benefits that a wind farm brings to neighbouring communities, such as a new library for
example, and therefore start to engage with the
positive side of the arguments for planning
developments themselves.

Hendry concluded that the UK Government was

focused on removing the barrier that restricts the
onshore wind industrys growth, and it was
important that UK industrial growth is maximised
and investment secured the UK has a skilled
workforce that can contribute a tremendous
amount to the companies that will operate in
the sector.
Delegates then had an opportunity to ask questions

National issues then dominated the questions,

with responses from the Minister stating that
primary energy policy in Wales will remain the
responsibility of his department but that, whilst
there was an ongoing discussion about where the
thresholds on non-primary policy will lie, there
will be a constructive, close working relationship
with the Welsh Government to ensure a joinedup picture on issues such as grid connection.
www.renewableuk.com

41

ORMAZABAL ACHIEVES A NEW OFFSHORE MILESTONE IN THE UK

The Thanet offshore wind farm is the largest
operational wind farm in the world. It
consists of 100 turbines, each with a 3MW
generating capacity.
The wind farm is located in the North Sea,
11.3km offshore from Foreness Point. The
wind turbine generators are interconnected by
an offshore 33kV inter-array cable network
and connected to an offshore substation
platform where the voltage is stepped up to
132kV. Electricity will be transported to shore
through two export cables. Grid connection
takes place at the Richborough Power station,
from where the power is distributed via an
existing local electricity network.
Electric switchgear manufacturers Ormazabal
and their local partner provided the wind
turbine manufacturer and utility provider with
custom-made medium-voltage switchgear
from the CGM 36kV system, as well as the
necessary added-value services to successfully
complete the project.
Turbine manufacturer: Vestas Offshore
Wind farm developer/owner: Vattenfall
Activities: Engineering, supply and commissioning
of special GIS switchgears for wind farm protection
and operation. CGM 36kV system range.

For further information please contact Ormazabal International Business on Tel: +34 94 431 87 31, Email: oib@ormazabal.com
or visit: www.ormazabal.com

42

www.renewableuk.com

The Onshore Wind Supply Seminar was attended by over 130 delegates. Photo: Matthew Pulzer

On the issue of changes to the Feed-in Tariffs for

micro-renewables, Hendry reserved the right for
changes to be made to the levels of tariffs awarded,
as is the case for larger-scale solar projects, but that
any changes would not be retrospective, as they
have been in some other countries.
Three presentations followed, first with Alex
Smale, UK Director of Mabey Bridge, a longestablished privately owned steel fabricator,
introducing its new 38 million tower
manufacturing facility and explaining how its
view of the UK onshore market influenced a
positive investment decision in late 2009. The
opportunity to diversify into the manufacture of
wind turbine towers had long been clear to
Mabey Bridge, given the similar skills employed in
its traditional bridge building sector, however it
was not until 2009 that the size of the market
became large enough to justify the investment,
and this was coincident with the signing of a
framework deal with REpower.
Eighteen months on, the outlook for the UK
market looks encouraging, having the potential to
be significant. Smale, however, warned that 2011
data on projects submitted, consented and built
looked weak for the first half, and that, unless the
obstacles such as planning and finance are
removed, the benefits for the UK in terms of
future investment providing jobs and prosperity
would not be realised.

Next, Alistair Taylor, Head of Service at REpower,

provided a turbine manufacturers view of the
UK onshore supply chain. Taylor explained that
REpowers philosophy is to use local suppliers
wherever practicable, this being traditionally
evident in the installation and service phases of
projects, and its recent partnership with Mabey
Bridge has lead to the supply of turbine towers
manufactured in the UK. Met masts and transformers have also been procured in the UK, but
Taylor noted that many major components could
not be sourced in the UK at the present time.
Taylor also noted that there are issues with using
non-UK contractors and suppliers on UK projects,
including language problems, documentation,
understanding of UK Health & Safety protocol,
response times and increased costs due to travel.
However, the UK suffers from gaps in provision,
with Taylor highlighting areas such as skills
shortages, a shortage of cost-effective and
competent suppliers, and contractors with
specialist knowledge of the wind industry
(particularly in major component supply and
refurbishment) gaps in the development of
technology, and problems with the transportation
of large materials within the UK.
Taylor asked of government that grants could be
made available to enable companies to develop
the skills to operate in the wind industry, together
with a consistent approach to the support of
apprenticeship programmes. Funding should be

The UK suffers from gaps in provision of skills, cost-effective

and competent suppliers and contractors with specialist knowledge
of the wind industry.

made available for fledgling companies to

develop products and technologies, and windspecific
R&D was required to develop the technology. To
conclude, Taylor focused on turbine installation,
suggesting that the efficiency of the UK wind
industry could be improved by developing ports,
improving road links, streamlining permit
processes, and establishing one body and police
authority to take the lead on transportation.
Finally, Ian Farquhar, Managing Director of new
entrants to the secto, David Brown Gear
Systems, explained its philosophy for
diversifying into the onshore wind market in
2009. Targeting the aftermarket services for
gearbox repairs, David Brown had to overcome
challenges that face new entrants its brand
and commitment was little known in the wind
sector and it could demonstrate no specific wind
industry experience despite having 150 years in
assurance-critical markets, such as nuclear
submarines and tanks.
Farquhar explained that key to overcoming
these obstacles was gaining market intelligence,
building relationships, collaborating, investing in
R&D, and learning lessons from competitors and
other sectors. Hiring wind industry talent was
identified by Farquhar as important, but above
all, demonstrating a positive ambition and
attitude.
David Brown has now secured a European repair
contract with Vestas, is creating a UK Wind
Service and Upgrade research facility, and claims
an estimated 2530 per cent of the UK market
for gearbox services. Wind experience is now
www.renewableuk.com

43

term Purchase Agreement. Onshore turbines require aerospace reliability that

is embodied in the process, together with automotive costs through total
design. To become a qualified supplier to the sector requires serious stamina
throughout the process, which can be a long one. The sector is very
challenging, Hill concluded, but no other sector provides an opportunity of
such size at this time.
Concluding the presentations was Steve Jackson, Sales and Marketing Manager
of SEM Limited, a UK manufacturer of electric motors, which has been
established for over 100 years. Currently turning over 1520 million annually,
97 per cent of its output is exported. Its wind products are synchronically
pitched motors for turbine pitch systems. SEM started to get involved with
the wind industry in 2005, when first contact was made, and the company
started supplying in 2006.

RenewableUK's CEO Maria McCaffery speaks to press during the Onshore Wind
Supply Seminar day, which was hosted by Hogan Lovells International LLP at their
central London offices. Photo: Matthew Pulzer

being developed in the OEM market, leading to opening a new

manufacturing facility in China and being selected as the gearbox partner
for two offshore wind turbine programmes.
Summarising, Farquhar maintained that onshore wind is a big opportunity for
new technology and expertise, early commitment is necessary for new
entrants, and a positive, determined approach is essential. Farquhar called on
government to assist the UK build its wind industry base by enabling a rapid
prove-out of technology, and providing integrated and coordinated support for
new and existing players, backed up by stability and clarity on policy.
Focus in the second plenary session turned to the export opportunity for UK
companies in the global onshore wind industry. Providing an overview of the
international market opportunities in onshore wind, Jim Feeney, Deputy Director of
UK Trade & Investments Energy Sector Team, told the seminar that onshore wind is
a priority sub-sector for export, explaining that target markets are the Arabian Gulf,
China, India, western Europe, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, UAE and the USA.
Feeney emphasised that each market has different characteristics and that UKTIs
approach is different in each case. The UK offering to these markets ranges from
components through to technical, planning and siting consultancy and services.
John Hill, Renewables Manager at Converteam, provided a comprehensive view
of the onshore opportunity and supplier characteristics from one of the UKs
largest exporters of onshore wind equipment. Hill outlined how, as a UK Tier
One manufacturer supplying to turbine manufacturers, Converteam remains
competitive, despite risks and costs associated with specification, contracts,
transportation and exchange rates. The utility scale of the market is in terms
of thousands of multi-megawatt turbines per annum.
To be successful in a highly competitive market, Hill illustrated that
organisations must have strategic empathy suppliers must be fully aligned
with the end customers and not just their immediate customers. They must be
able to demonstrate capability and capacity exemplary quality and relevant
Intellectual Property is a must, together with strong business-to-business
cooperation, in capacity planning and production rate readiness. Additionally,
companies must have an investment disposition for example, partners of
the right profile to grow with the market, together with an understanding of
investment breakpoints when forward planning.
Having demonstrated these criteria, Hill detailed the characteristics of
successful wind industry suppliers strong focus throughout the organisation,
serial production excellence, inherent reliability, value, and having roots strong
enough to provide the ability to tolerate risk. During the subsequent questionand-answer session Hill also emphasised that having good component
tracking capabilities is very important and a key lesson to be learned. In
summary, Hill outlined the practicalities of being business-ready for the Long-

To be successful in a highly competitive market,

suppliers must be fully aligned with the end
customers and not just their immediate customers.

Jackson emphasised that a great deal of effort has been invested in talking to
immediate customers and, crucially, also to turbine manufacturers, directly so
as to better understand their requirements; knocking on doors and attending
exhibitions. Jackson also demonstrated that SEM has taken care to translate all
documentation into the local languages, including Chinese, so as to maximise
its chances. During the subsequent question-and-answer session, Jackson
remarked that putting increased effort into the early stages of engagement is
key and that, as a lower-tier supplier, talking to the end-user (for example the
turbine manufacturer), rather than just your immediate customer, is vitally
important in understanding the market.
Multiple orders are now on the horizon in the utility-scale market, with SEMs
components set to return to the UK in the turbines being installed at onshore
sites. Jackson suggested that a referral scheme would be helpful for when
turbine manufacturers set up in the UK, so that they are presented with a
portfolio of UK suppliers, or that perhaps grants are awarded to manufacturers,
based on their UK content commitments.
Summarising, Dr Gordon Edge remarked that it is not always the case that new
information is learned at seminars, but that many new and interesting lessons
had been heard at this event. With that, it was left to Richard Tyler from Hogan
Lovells to thank the delegates and speakers, and invite all to a well-received
drinks and canaps reception on the terrace with views over the city.

Infrared Aircraft
Warning Lighting
Approved for on-shore
UK wind turbines

The MOD Low Flying Operations Sqn has now completed ground and flight
based trials on prototype IR lights to meet the military requirements for vertical
obstruction lighting on structures below 500ft.
The performance of the lights against a range of military NVGs proved to be
satisfactory and resulted in safe and consistent NVG/visual detection ranges.
MoD Air Staff has released approval for clearance of the use of CEL Infra Red
lights for lighting onshore wind turbines.
Contact us for more information:

Contarnex Europe Limited

252 Martin Way,
Morden,
Tel. 020 8540 1034
Surrey,
Fax. 020 8543 3058
SM4 4AW
web: www.contarnex.com
England
email: info@contarnex.com

www.renewableuk.com

45

ANOTHER SELL-OUT CONFERENCE

RenewableUKs tenth Offshore Wind Conference took place at the newly developed waterfront in the heart of
Liverpool. The organisations Head of Communications Rob Norris reports on another successful year.

RenewableUKs Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, addresses the tenth annual Offshore Wind Conference, held this year in Liverpool. Photo: Matthew Pulzer

Two and a half thousand people descended on

Liverpool to attend RenewableUKs Offshore Wind
2011 Conference and Exhibition. The event was fully
booked well in advance, with 167 companies taking
part. In the main hall, leading industry figures
assessed the progress that the offshore sector has
made, and laid out their vision of the future.
In his opening speech, the Chairman of
RenewableUK, Andrew Jamieson, welcomed
delegates to our biggest offshore conference ever,
describing the unprecedented number of attendees
as a testament to the UKs world lead in
the sector.
Jamieson reflected that it was ten years since the
first two offshore turbines went into the water at
Blyth a year that also saw the launch of Round
One, creating a mood of optimism about the
future. That optimism has proved to be well
founded, he told delegates, as today we are the
world leaders in offshore wind, with 1.3GW
installed. Within five years a further 5GW from
Rounds One and Two will be installed in UK waters,
whilst the 40GW of sites from Round 2.5, the
Scottish Territorial Waters and, of course, Round
Three create a huge potential pipeline of projects.
Indeed, in many ways it seems as though the last
decade has made the momentum behind our
industry almost unstoppable.
Jamieson went on to outline some of the main
issues facing the offshore sector, noting that this
years conference came at a pivotal time, with
Government announcements on Electricity Market

Reform, DECCs Road Map and the Renewables

Obligation Banding Review three policy issues
that, he said, would shape the long-term future of
the renewables industry in the UK. He pointed out
that manufacturers are looking to make decisions
soon on whether to press ahead with their
projects. We all know that uncertainty kills
investment, he warned, and we cannot afford
doubt over the future market size due to
ambiguous Government signals.

can be achieved by having a thriving

manufacturing base, with healthy competition
between a range of manufacturers using a
domestic British supply chain avoiding the sting
of exchange rate instability. However, he warned,
this virtuous circle can only be achieved if our
industry has the confidence to invest confidence
that comes from a bold and unambiguous
commitment from the Government to the longterm future of Britains offshore wind industry.

The issue of offshore costs was high on the agenda

at the conference, and RenewableUKs new report
Offshore Wind: Forecasts of Future Costs and
Benefits coincided nicely. The Chairman touched
upon the theme in his speech, saying: Our
industry knows all too well that offshore costs are
too high, and that they must come down if we are
to be viable in the long term. A combination of
factors, from exchange rates, to commodity prices,
to a lack of competition in the supply, has driven
up prices to 3 million per MW. But we also know
that these costs can and will be reduced. I think
this should be one of the main themes for you as
you do business how to address the longer-term
cost base. Cost reductions must be achieved if we
are to maintain government policy support.

The Chairman concluded his speech by urging

delegates to take a proactive stance: It is the
responsibility of industry to push the Government
into action now to realise the ambition and
enthusiasm we all share. Have no doubt that
RenewableUK both publicly and privately is
leading the charge to achieve this. I know that our
industry as a whole is prepared to go the extra
mile, working with government, to drive down
costs as far as they can go. But we are also clear
that it is the responsibility of the Government to
give the sector the confidence it requires to turn
the dreams of a world-beating UK offshore
industry into a reality.

Jamieson noted that the report shows the price of

energy from offshore wind should fall naturally by
around 15 per cent as larger, more efficient
turbines are deployed further out to sea. He also
pointed out that the study identifies even greater
potential for cost savings of up to a third, which

A call for action also came from the former BP

Chief Executive and current President of the Royal
Academy of Engineers, Lord Browne of Madingley.
He warned delegates that in an inflationary
economy, struggling to restore growth and
entering a period of unprecedented fiscal austerity,
offshore wind risked being seen by the public as a
luxury they could not afford. It is no exaggeration

www.renewableuk.com

47

2,500 delegates attended Offshore Wind 2011 which is set to be even bigger next year as it goes to ExCel in London, as the Global Offshore Wind Conference 2012
Photo: Matthew Pulzer

to say that the future success of this industry

depends entirely on countering that argument,
he declared.
He outlined three key responses: firstly, that fossil
fuels only appear to have a lower price because
their most significant costs are hidden. The real
costs of fossil fuels, he suggested, are in our
dependence on foreign imports, our vulnerability
to price volatility, and the carbon dioxide they
release into our atmosphere. Fossil fuels may be
cheaper, but that does not make them
better value.
Secondly, he pointed out that although offshore
wind may be more expensive than fossil fuels
today, it might not be in the future. By developing
offshore wind now we can gain the experience and
the scale to drive down costs. he told delegates.
Building new conventional plants commits us to
fuelling them for decades, at prices that may well
be far higher than todays.
His third argument focused on the economic
benefits brought by the sector. Offshore wind can
be the catalyst, he enthused, for a sustainable
renewal of this countrys manufacturing base, both
re-energising existing industries across the nation
and creating new sector leaders based in the UK.
This is not a simplistic argument about creating
jobs, as critics of offshore wind would characterise
it. Rather, it is about achieving the Governments
goal of rebalancing the economy towards
engineering and manufacturing, spurring development in the UK regions and restoring British
exports. Those are the tangible benefits of green
growth that we must deliver and communicate in
order to win the support of the public.

Lord Browne pointed out that Germanys recent

decision to phase out nuclear power in favour of
more offshore wind expanded the potential
economic prize by creating a huge market for UK
exports. The success of UK firms in the German
market will be a real test of our ability to compete
worldwide in offshore wind, he declared.
On day two of the conference, the Chief
Executive of RenewableUK, Maria McCaffery, gave
her keynote address. She noted that securing the
right level of government support remains a
crucial issue for the industry: The new
Government has introduced a raft of initiatives
to encourage economic development, from BISs
Local Enterprise Partnerships, to the Treasurys
Enterprise Zones, to the Prime Ministers new
Technology Innovation Centres, to DECCs
proposed Marine Energy Parks.
However, there is a real danger that these
initiatives will see efforts spread too thinly, that
limited resources will be stretched to breaking
point and that opportunities to develop real
centres of expertise and excellence will be lost.
Thats why we would like the Regional Growth
Fund to provide strategic oversight, working
closely with central government and all the
panoply of local bodies to replicate the kind of
work that has been done here on Merseyside, in
an attempt to create renewable energy hubs
that can attract the much-needed investment
and jobs.

She also had a strong message to convey about

the way that cost reductions can be achieved most
effectively: To those who are now beginning to
say that we should pause and look at other
supposedly less expensive ways of delivering a
low-carbon economy, I say this we will only
achieve the cost reductions you seek by building a
market big enough to allow for competition.
During her speech, the Chief Executive announced
a new initiative on what she described as the
number one priority for the industry Health &
Safety. The Offshore Wind and Marine Energy
Health & Safety Accord is the first of its type
anywhere in the world, and she appealed to all
stakeholders to support the accord by signing up
to it.
In conclusion, Maria McCaffery summed up the
mood of those involved in the sector: Ten years on
from the birth of the offshore industry, we can feel
the excitement and enthusiasm for its potential
but are all aware of the scale of its challenges. I
have no doubt that together, working with
government, we can overcome those challenges
and deliver on that potential.
Next years conference will be an even bigger
event, as its new name suggests. The 2012 Global
Offshore Conference in London will help to ensure
that the UK, already the world leader in offshore
wind, is the focus for the growth of the global
offshore wind industry.

A combination of factors, from exchange rates, to commodity prices,

to a lack of competition in the supply, has driven up prices to 3 million
per MW. But we also know that these costs can and will be reduced.
www.renewableuk.com

49

HERITAGE AND PLANNING POLICY

The draft National Planning Policy Framework outlines emerging
Government policy with regard to the historic environment, largely
reiterating the principles of PPS5. Its main points are:

Planning applications should describe the significance of heritage

assets potentially affected and the contribution made by
their setting;
The detail provided should be proportionate to the
assets importance;
A presumption in favour of the conservation of designated
heritage assets;
The local planning authority should take a balanced judgement,
having regard to the presumption in favour of sustainable
development;
Where the part/whole loss of a heritage asset's significance is
justified, it provides for the recording and publication of the
resulting evidence.

The key heritage issue facing the renewable energy sector, and onshore
wind in particular (i.e. impact on the setting of heritage assets), is
therefore likely to remain potentially contentious. Consequently, wind
farm developers must continue to be mindful of the issue while
promoting schemes through the planning system.
For more information visit:
www.cgms.co.uk

Turbines next to a
prehistoric standing stone

Tel: +44 (0) 1983 533421

E: info@consuta.com

www.consuta.com
50

www.renewableuk.com

Visit us at
RenewableUK
2011 on
stand 219

KNOCKING DOWN COSTS TO

BUILD UP AN INDUSTRY
The Coalition Government is lining up offshore wind to play a crucial role in its low-carbon energy mix, planning for
thousands of wind turbines to be installed in UK waters over the coming decades. Jessica Shankleman reports on the
costs, and the benefits of a rapidly changing industry.

It is widely accepted that the cost of this nascent

technology must be significantly reduced to
accelerate deployment rates and prevent consumer
bills from skyrocketing.
As part of a new Renewable Energy Roadmap
produced earlier this year, DECC has set up an
offshore wind task force, led by RenewableUKs
chairman, Andrew Jamieson, to identify means of
reducing the price of electricity from offshore wind
generation from around 150 per MWh currently
to 100 per MWh by 2020 - a reduction that the
Government hopes will allow the industry to far
exceed the 13GW capacity target for 2020
outlined in 2009s Renewable Energy Strategy.

HOW WILL COSTS BE DRIVEN DOWN, AND

HOW LOW CAN THEY REALISTICALLY GO?
A recent report by BVG Associates, commissioned
by RenewableUK, found that the overall cost of
energy is likely to fall by 15 per cent over the next
decade, and under favourable policy conditions
could drop by as much as 33 per cent, to achieve
that much-wanted 100 per MWh.
Based on the assumption that almost 30GW will
be built from 2011 to 2022, the report finds that
the industry could achieve at least a 15 per cent
drop through technological advances as it grows.
Capital expenditure (CAPEX) per MW is likely to
increase over the next decade as projects move
further offshore and into deeper waters, with
costs peaking as the first wave of Round Three
projects, using larger turbines, come online
between 2015 and 2018.
But the increase in capacity factor, combined
with the reduced operating expenditure (OPEX),
would outweigh the rising CAPEX costs, so the
overall cost of energy is reduced.
Bigger turbines and foundations will require
fewer vessel moves or installations, meaning that
from 2015 onwards installation costs are likely
to fall slightly. Importantly, these larger and more
reliable turbines would reduce OPEX costs during
a wind farms lifetime. Many maintenance
activities are at an almost constant cost per unit.
The report suggests energy yield could grow by a
fifth by 2022, as projects further out to sea
capture stronger winds with larger turbines, again
providing another opportunity for cost reductions.
But beyond site conditions and choice of

The Renewable Energy Roadmap report suggests that energy yield could grow by a fifth by 2022.

technology, the report found costs could fall by

33 per cent by 2022 if a greater proportion of
parts are made in the UK, thus reducing
developers exposure to exchange rates.
Innovation, falling steel prices and strong
competition from other markets would also play
a part.
But these improvements are by no means certain,
and a lessening of government ambition, or
planning delays, could discourage supply chain
investment, scaling back innovation and
competition, and potentially preventing any
cost reductions.
Investment, innovation and competition are
essential for creating sustained cost
improvements,says the report.
Paul Reynolds, RenewableUKs Offshore Wind
Manager, explained that 100 per MWh would
make offshore wind competitive with gas, the
cheapest source of energy.
Were currently dependent on government
subsidies to make us competitive with other forms
of technology, he says. This is partly because of

Photo: Jon Davies

market failures but also because were more

expensive, and if we want to be competitive in the
longer term then we have to reduce costs.
Whilst Reynolds reckons that a 15 per cent drop
could comfortably be reached, it remains to be
seen if the holy grail of 100 per MWh will be
achieved.
Increasing the UK content of offshore wind farms
will not only help cut costs, but could also play an
important role in boosting Britains green economy
BVG Associates report also examined some of the
potential benefits that a booming offshore wind
industry could offer the UK, including cutting
carbon emissions and building a healthy industry.
The report predicts that companies with facilities
in the UK are more likely to serve domestic rather
than overseas markets, which will increase the
Governments chance of meeting its renewables
targets.
The report assumes that, by 2022, almost
70 per cent of orders for UK offshore wind farms
during the capital phase will come from UK Tier
One suppliers, compared with around 20 per cent

Based on the assumption that almost 30GW will be built from 2011 to 2022, the report finds that the industry
could achieve at least a 15 per cent drop through technological advances as it grows.
Andrew Jamieson, RenewableUK

www.renewableuk.com

51

NEW TASK FORCE TO CUT COSTS

RenewableUKs Chairman Andrew Jamieson, who has been appointed
Chairman of the new industry-led Offshore Wind Cost Reduction Task Force,
has vowed to explore every avenue in his search for dramatic reductions
to the cost of the technology.
The group will produce an action plan next spring as part of efforts to bring
the levelised costs of offshore wind down by 33 per cent to 100 per MWh
within a decade. The Government recently said the UK could increase its
target for offshore wind capacity from 13GW to 18GW by 2020, but only
if costs fall by around a third.
A recent study for RenewableUK concludes the industry could comfortably
achieve a 15 per cent reduction in the cost of energy by 2022, as turbines
increase in size and move further offshore where wind resources are
stronger.
However, the report predicts that the ambitious 33 per cent reduction in
costs could only be achieved with favourable conditions in terms of
competition, innovation, exchange rates and steel prices.
The new task force will also involve other industry members as well as the
Government and The Crown Estate. Jamieson, who is responsible for energy
policy and regulation at ScottishPower Renewables, says it remains to be
seen if 100 per MWh can be achieved, but the task force would leave no
stone unturned in its efforts to identify cost improvements.
We do not know exactly what needs to be done to reach that goal, but we
will explore every avenue to reduce costs, he says. Part of what we need
to do is to work out what will naturally come in terms of increased size of
the industry. But there will clearly come a point where we need levers to
get into another scale of cost reduction.
One option on the table could be to develop standardised turbine and
foundation technologies, he says, reducing the need for developers to order
bespoke designs from manufacturers.

Andrew Jamieson speaking at the RenewableUK Offshore Conference in Liverpool.

Photo: Matthew Pulzer / RenewableUK

Other possible options include proposals for floating turbines, new wind
farm configurations designed to optimise power output, and improvements
to turbine reliability.
I want the industry to develop as much offshore wind as it can to meet
the EUs 2020 targets.
Commenting on Jamiesons appointment, RenewableUKs Chief Executive,
Maria McCaffery, says she hopes the new group would accelerate the drive
to cut costs. Andrew Jamieson will bring a tremendous amount of energy
and first-hand experience to this role, and I am sure well see a lot of
progress in short order, she says. His appointment is a huge vote of
confidence in RenewableUKs ability to represent the sector.

The industry could also provide around 14 billion

in Treasury revenue through taxation and The
Crown Estate licensing arrangements, and trigger
3 bn of investment in the UK supply chain that
will support more than 45,000 long-term jobs.
But, as well as the direct economic impacts of job
creation and tax revenue, the report predicts that a
vibrant domestic offshore wind industry will create
more opportunities for diversification for existing
UK industries such as oil and gas, and aerospace.

Scroby Sands Wind Farm. Photo: RenewableUK

today, and that about half of orders for continental

projects will be UK-sourced, compared to 10 per
cent today.
As a result, the industry could potentially add
around 60 billion to the UK economy through
development, manufacture and installation
activities. BVG also reckons that, in total, UK gross
value added will be almost 23 billion by the time
the last project is decommissioned.

And as well as serving the UK market, companies

setting up facilities in the UK will be able to export
goods and services to markets in the rest of Europe
and worldwide.
A wind turbine is by no means carbon neutral. Life
cycle analysis by Vestas calculates a footprint of
just over 5kg per MWh for a V90 3MW turbine.
Moreover, the Government will need to build extra
fossil-fuelled backup plants to account for the
variability of wind power.
However, assuming an offshore wind farm lifetime
of 20 years, the report predicts that nearly 800

million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions will be

avoided due to offshore wind farms being built,
providing an important environmental driver for
growing the industry.
However, as a caveat, this figure would be reduced
by around 20 per cent if carbon capture storage
technology is proven and rolled out between 2020
and 2050, if it is used on all gas-fuelled power
stations.
There are still major challenges ahead for the
industry, as BVG notes in its report, but with the
right policies in place, the offshore wind industry
could play a major role in helping the Government
meet its renewable energy targets and in
stimulating the economy.
The offshore wind industry is not yet mature in
either technology or supply chain and, if it is to
play a significant, long-term role in the lowcarbon future of the UK, it must improve costs,
says the report. A world-class offshore wind
supply chain may develop in the UK, but
investment is needed in the short term to realise
the long-term benefits.

The offshore wind industry is not yet mature in either technology or supply chain and, if it is to play a significant,
long-term role in the low-carbon future of the UK, it must improve costs. A world-class offshore wind supply chain
may develop in the UK, but investment is needed in the short term to realise the long-term benefits.
www.renewableuk.com

53

AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Jim Smyllie, Executive Director Delivering with Communities at Natural England reports on Natural Englands
relationships with the renewables industry.

One of the biggest challenges facing the nation is

to develop a low-carbon economy to help reduce
climate change without damaging the very same
natural environment that we are trying to save
from climate change. It is a challenge to which
British industry is rising with considerable success
and innovation.

To some people, renewable energy deployment and protection of the environment

are incompatible, but experience shows that this is not the case. Photo: RenewableUK

Aware of the demands ahead, the Government

has recently published two white papers (one on
electricity reform and the other on the natural
environment ), and has just unveiled an ambitious
strategy to safeguard biodiversity and the
ecosystem services on which society and the
economy depend.
To some people, the deployment of renewable
energy and the protection of the environment
are inevitably on a collision course. Yet energy
companies have repeatedly demonstrated that this
is simply not the case. For example, developers
have recently worked with us to develop our staff
guidance, which describes our approach to
assessing where onshore wind energy development
might be sustainably and successfully accommodated in our landscapes. This transparent
partnership highlights how environmental
concerns can be successfully integrated with the
needs of the growing wind energy sector.
The Government has also dispelled this myth by
committing to a range of policy initiatives
designed as a single, coherent structure not by
attempting to play one policy off against another.
It was reassuring to hear Maria McCaffery, Chief
Executive of RenewableUK say recently that, in her
opinion, the increased pace of deployment of
renewables was down to the quality of
relationships the industry, and RenewableUK, have
developed with stakeholders such as Natural
England. Weve all become much better at looking
at the sustainable deployment of renewables as an
issue of common interest; one which deserves a
thoughtful, collaborative approach, not a
challenging, adversarial one.
The key to sustainable deployment of renewable
energy can be summed up as the right technology, at the right scale, in the right place.
Achieving this is easier, quicker and therefore
cheaper when developers talk to us at Natural
England at the outset preferably before choosing
an area of search. It is a consistent lesson from our
casework to date: the sooner developers talk to us,
the sooner we can advise them, and the sooner
deployment can happen.
The natural environment is richly varied two
places that look very similar to the untrained eye

may actually be entirely different. Our job is to

understand those variables and to help developers
understand them too .
It works on the same principle as finding space in
your home for a new piece of furniture. No doubt
your decision would depend on the type of
furniture, its dimensions, what the room is used
for, how often, etc. Few pieces of furniture can
go in any place in any room. Each situation is
different and the requirement is to get the most
out of the whole room, as well as out of a
particular piece of furniture!
The same is true of any type of development in
our shared and increasingly precious environment:
it needs thought to get it right. England is one of
the most densely populated nations in Europe
every development is adjacent to someone or
something so developments must be good
neighbours if they are to be accepted by our
Big Society.
Happily, developers have demonstrated that they
are more than equal to the task, and as a result we
have been able to recommend consent to 90 per
cent of all onshore developments and 100 per cent
of all offshore developments to date.

Typically, where we have sustained an objection,

the reason has been the impact on landscape
quality in a protected landscape in England
(National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural
Beauty) not because of protected species or
habitats. This is because, so far, the vast majority of
renewable energy projects have been for onshore
wind turbines: distinctive structures that are often
imposing features on high-level ground.
Interestingly, some landscapes of soft, undulating
hills can more easily accommodate wind farms
without significant impacts on the quality of the
landscape and wind speeds on the high slopes
of hills can be greater than at their crests, so wind
farms sited here may deliver much more energy too.
In some cases we receive an application that lacks
essential information (sometimes quite basic
information), which means we are unable either to
object or not object. We will respond by requesting
the missing information and informing the
planning authority that we cannot reach a view
until it is received. In planning system terminology
this is a holding objection i.e. were unable to
say whether or not we would recommend consent
until we know more. We would prefer to able to
say yes if... a lot more quickly in all cases: doing

"The key to sustainable deployment of renewable energy can be summed up as 'the right technology,
at the right scale, in the right place'."
www.renewableuk.com

55

56

www.renewableuk.com

A 'one size fits all' approach to energy development in the natural environment
simply does not work. Photo: RenewableUK

so depends on the quality of the application

received, which can be greatly improved when
developers hire appropriate specialist advice and
discuss their outline ideas with us, in confidence, at
the outset.
Often were told we were advised not to contact
Natural England until our proposals were finalised.
It is true that the legislation only requires
developers to contact us at the formal
consultation stage, but we welcome and prefer
much earlier engagement so we can help them
avoid future problems and expense. This can also
save the taxpayer too, if it means a modest
amount of time up front avoids long drawn out
discussion and appeals later on. We wont do a
developers or consultants work for them, but a
little guidance about whats needed, when and
why is usually enough to avoid problems.
Generating renewable energy is one part of the
UKs task; another is taking that energy from
where it is produced to where it is needed.
Establishing generating capacity in locations far
from energy consumers inevitably leads to
greater costs and the potential for greater impact
on the natural environment. As technologies
develop and mature over the coming 20 years,
we may see many more watts produced close
to where they are needed, in micro and
community-scale developments and with
greater use of city-friendly technologies.
In the meantime, we have to find ways to carry
energy from source to user in a sustainable and
cost-effective manner.
It is perfectly legitimate for energy companies to
decide their transmission routes and the location
of their generating capacity in isolation.
Nevertheless, it can be quicker, cheaper and easier
to treat siting options for transmission routes and

generating capacity as a single functional unit,

since minor adjustments to the location of
generating capacity can have major implications
for the siting (and cost) of transmission routes.
Returning briefly (forgive me!) to the domestic
analogy, if your room needs new lighting, the
location of the light fittings will in part determine
where the new wiring and switches will go. If you
live in an old, beautiful and precious building, you
will pay even more attention to the siting of the
lights, wiring and switches to ensure that you dont
jeopardise the value of the property or your
pleasure in living there. In the case of offshore
energy development, this need to regard
generation and transmission as a whole will
become increasingly acute and, if overlooked,
increasingly costly to the industry, energy bill
payers and taxpayers. We are working closely with
the industry to tackle this issue.
On- and offshore, siting considerations are made
more complex and more costly to the industry by
the lack of current and reliable evidence about the
natural environments that will host developments.
At present, companies find themselves having to
collect data that many of them believe ought to
be readily available to them. The Government and
Natural England recognise this as a very valid
concern, and in the Natural Environment White
Paper the Government has set out its commitment
to filling the evidence gaps, so that development,
deployment and monitoring can be made cheaper,
quicker and easier, for industry and taxpayers alike.
We will be working with government and industry
bodies, such as RenewableUK, to assist. This type of
constructive approach is undoubtedly the way
forward for the renewable industry and the
conservation movement to achieve our many
common goals.

NATURAL ENGLANDS TOP TEN TIPS

(DRAWN FROM CASEWORK)
1. Talk to us before you decide on an area of search.
2. Note the requirements of the legislation
before you start, and discuss any issues of
concern as soon as possible.
3. Dont assume that the natural environment
is homogeneous it isnt and a one-sizefits-all approach just wont work.
4. Make sure you understand the
environmental value of the site at the outset
this saves time later on.
5. Plan for each stage of the application if you
only notice that you need two years worth of
data six months before you are scheduled to
break ground, you are just storing up problems
and costs for the project.
6. Get regulators and consultees together at
the start and certainly at the informal
scoping stage. Having a series of bilateral
meetings instead may just lead to more
questions than answers, and will certainly
take more time.
7. Highlight any key features of a site that may
be at risk and talk to us.
8. If your proposal is dependent on specifics
without which you cannot proceed, e.g. a
particular approach to routing, a feature you
know will face significant impacts in other
words, aspects that you regard as showstoppers for the project then talk them
through with us, and agree worst-case
scenarios in the Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA).
9. Share methodologies for the EIA and first
drafts of it with us early, at the scoping
stage if we can spot obvious gaps, it will
save you time later on.
10. Be upfront about any uncertainties they
will exist.

As technologies develop and mature over the coming 20 years, we may see many
more watts produced close to where they are needed, in micro and community-scale
developments and with greater use of city-friendly technologies.
www.renewableuk.com

57

CONSULTANCY CLOCKS UP ALMOST

250 WIND ENERGY PROJECTS
SLR, the international environmental consultancy, has clocked
up almost 250 wind energy projects in Europe and continues to
see its wind energy sector grow significantly.
SLR director, Alan Edwards says: SLR has been involved with
wind energy projects for many years and I think that clocking
up almost 250 wind energy projects is a testament to the range
and quality of services that our team provides to the wind
sector. It is great that we have notable wind specialists such as
Lindsey Guthrie, Andrew McCarthy and Alison Sidgwick on our
team, and recently, Clive Fagg, an excellent planner who has
particular expertise in medium-scale wind projects, has decided
to join SLR.
We continue to grow and, at present, helping our international
colleagues in Africa, Australasia and North America to expand
their wind energy businesses is a key priority for us. The
offshore market is also important and our considerable
experience of working on major grid connection projects is
really helping us out with this sector.
For further information visit: www.slrconsulting.com

58

www.renewableuk.com

HERALDS OFFSHORE WIND BOOM

The UKs pipeline of offshore wind projects has never looked healthier.
James Murray explores the remaining challenges

At 3am on the morning of 1st August 2011, the

thirtieth and final wind turbine was installed at the
150MW Ormonde Wind Farm, off the coast of
Cumbria. For both developer Vattenfall and REpower,
the German manufacturer that provided Ormondes
5MW offshore turbines, the project represents a
significant milestone for the UKs offshore wind
industry and its burgeoning pipeline of projects.

Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm

On completion the wind farm will
comprise 30 Re Power 5M wind turbines
with a capacity of 150 megawatts
Photo: Ben Barden Photography/Vattenfall

Our previous offshore development Thanet was

built on time and on budget, and now Ormonde is
in the same position, says David Hodkinson, UK
Manager for Vattenfall. We are showing that
people can do these projects on time and cost.
His comments are echoed by Norbert Giese, Vice
President for Offshore Development at REpower
Systems SE, who reveals that with the company
in the running for a number of future offshore
projects, it has joined rival turbine manufacturers
Siemens, Vestas and General Electric in actively
investigating whether to locate a new offshore
turbine factory in the UK. We are screening the
market in terms of suitable harbour facilities with
the right space and skills base, he says, without
letting on which locations are under consideration.
That is what we are doing behind the curtain, so
we can move quickly if we decide there is the
demand in the market from customers to justify
the investment.
The completion of the Ormonde Wind Farm is just
the latest in a flurry of milestones that in recent
months have served to highlight the rapid expansion
of the UKs world-leading offshore wind market.
Vattenfall followed the Ormonde announcement
by confirming a week later that it had filed a
planning application for a proposed eleven-turbine
offshore wind farm demonstration centre,
alongside partners Technip and Aberdeen
Renewable Energy Group much to the chagrin of
billionaire tycoon Donald Trump, who thinks the
development will spoil his nearby golf course.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the country, Statoil
and Statkraft announced on 4th August that they
had connected to the grid the first of 86 wind
turbines at the 317MW Sheringham Shoal Wind
Farm, off the coast of Norfolk. That news came
only a couple of weeks after the consortium
developing the 1 billion London Array project
in the Thames Estuary confirmed they had
successfully installed two offshore substations and
were on track to bring the first phase of the project
online by the end of 2012.
The UKs dominance as the worlds leading
offshore wind market was then further underlined
by new figures from the European Wind Energy
Association that revealed 108 new offshore wind
turbines were connected to European power grids
during the first six months of 2011, 101 of which
were off the UK coast.

The pipeline is very healthy at the moment. I

dont think the pipeline has ever been this strong,
says Paul Reynolds of RenewableUK, adding that
the industrys own figures show there are 1.5GW
of offshore wind capacity already built, a further
2.054GW under construction and 1.7GW that
have gained planning approval.

the moment it is around 150/MWh. Its a

challenging target, but it remains possible.

Independent figures from analyst firm Bloomberg

New Energy Finance (BNEF) paint a similarly
upbeat picture. The pipeline is looking very
healthy through to the end of 2014, says BNEFs
Fraser Johnston. We should see year-on-year
growth through to 2014. There are 1.5GW now
and there will be 2GW by end of the year and
5GW by the end of 2014.

Most notably, there are concerns amongst

suppliers of turbines and components over what
BNEFs Johnston describes as a slight hiatus in
the pipeline between 2014 and 2017. The current
wave of Round Two wind farms is expected to be
largely completed within the next three years
and, despite the fact that planning work is
already underway on the nine assigned Round
Three zones, construction is not expected to get
underway on the first Round Three wind farm
until 2015 at the earliest.

However, where things get really interesting is

when the so-called Round Three wave of projects
starts to come online. The pipeline is back-ended
to the second half of the decade, explains Ronan
ORegan, a partner at PwC. There are projects
coming through now and a handful for the next
two to three years, but the real ramp-up is meant
to come from 2016 onwards.
This second wave of deeper water wind farms was
given a major boost recently when the
Government published a Renewables Road Map
that revealed plans to increase the target for the
UKs offshore wind capacity from 13GW to 18GW
by 2020, on the understanding that the sector can
bring down the cost of energy. In addition,
ministers announced a new 30 million innovation
fund and industry-led task force would be formed
to help support projects designed to bring down
the cost of offshore wind energy. If we can get the
cost down, the world is our oyster, says Reynolds.
We need to get down to around 100/MWh; at

Inevitably, the pervasive optimism surrounding

the project pipeline is tempered by a number of
challenges that manufacturers and developers
continue to face.

The Crown Estate has moved to address these

fears, confirming last year that five existing
offshore wind farms Greater Gabbard, Kentish
Flats, Thanet, Burbo Bank and Walney would be
granted approval for extensions that would pump
an additional 1.7GW of capacity into the pipeline
to help support the industry until construction
starts on the Round Three projects. The Scottish
Government has similarly announced plans for up
to six near-shore wind farms in Scottish Territorial
Waters that could add a further 11GW of capacity.
Meanwhile, experts claim that plans for a number
of large wind farms off the coast of Germany will
provide international developers and manufacturers with plenty of work during the middle of
the decade.
Vattenfalls Hodkinson professes to be
unconcerned by any slowdown in the pipeline,

www.renewableuk.com

59

EDUCATIONAL WEBINAR ON SEAPLANNER OFFSHORE WIND FARM MANAGEMENT TOOL

Seaplanner, the web-based management tool for

offshore renewables, is fast taking on across wind
farm projects in the UK and Europe

On July 13th, a group of industry experts

from SeaRoc and Natural Power presented a
two-hour webinar on SeaPlanner the
innovative web-based management tool for
offshore renewables which is fast taking on
across wind farm projects in the UK and
Europe. The system is already being used on

more than half of the UKs offshore capacity

837MW out of 1525MW and continues to
offer clients a simple but effective approach
to multi-contractor project management
from health and safety, personnel and vessel
management, through to a full spatial
database and document management system.

As part of an ongoing set of educational

seminars provided by the Natural Power
group, this latest webinar saw Dominic
Stratton, GIS Manager at SeaRoc, provide a
complete overview of SeaPlanner including an
interactive demonstration driving the system
for the remote audience.

To view a copy of the webinar, or to receive more information about SeaPlanner email: dominic.stratton@searoc.com

60

www.renewableuk.com

Scroby Sands. Experts remain bullish that the project pipeline will cement the UK's position as the world's leading offshore wind market. Photo: Ben Alcraft/RenewableUK

arguing that if there is a bit of a lull in activity

ahead of the Round Three projects then the Round
Two extensions, Scottish Territorial Waters projects
and preparations for Round Three will keep the
project pipeline flowing. Even if there is a break
before Round Three, those projects will be so large
that there will still be a lot of preparatory
investment to keep the industry busy, he predicts.
However, others warn that government, developers
and manufacturers will have to work closely
together to ensure all elements of the supply chain
are willing to make the investments required to
avoid potential component shortages later in the
decade. There is a huge amount of construction
risk and a risk of undersupply from the supply
chain, warns Johnston.
The export cable market, for example, could be
tight. There needs to be constant dialogue
between government, developers, manufacturers
and supply chain to give key suppliers the
confidence they need to invest in increased
capacity.
Similar dialogue between industry and policymakers is required to ensure planning barriers to
development are overcome. For example,
RenewableUKs Reynolds notes that three
proposed projects in the Wash are currently being
held up by planning objections over the possible
impact on local bird-life. Meanwhile, insiders warn
the Governments newly established Infrastructure
Planning Commission could introduce fresh
uncertainty into the planning process, with experts
arguing that developers will require a degree of
flexibility when lodging planning applications for
Round Three projects that could take four or five
years to come to fruition.

Developers are also awaiting confirmation from

Ofgem on how the grid connection regime will be
managed and funded, at the same time as waiting
for more detail from the Government on how
much revenue they can expect to generate
through the contract for difference Feed-in Tariffs
proposed as part of the Electricity Market Reform.
There are further concerns over the immense
financing challenges faced by Round Three
developers as they seek to raise the estimated
100bn required to build offshore wind farms in
deeper waters. The UK needs around 100 billion
to deliver its offshore plans over the next ten
years, Germany needs 50 billion and other
European countries need around 50 billion,
observes REpowers Giese. Raising that level of
financing will be a real challenge.
It is a fear echoed by Johnston, who warns that
unlike earlier offshore wind farms, none of the
Round Three projects can be financed solely from
developers balance sheets. They will need
institutional investors like pension funds, and, in an
industry that is based on policy support and faces
construction risk, they will have to do more to get
those investors on board, he advises.
However, others are confident the investment case
is looking stronger than ever. On top of increasing
the target for offshore wind capacity, the
Government has promised to deliver revenue
support to the sector through the contract for
difference Feed-in Tariffs and has hinted that the
soon-to-be-launched Green Investment Bank
could provide finance for those projects that
struggle to secure private backing. This political
support has increased the likelihood of a number
of offshore turbine factories being located in the

UK a move that would further bolster investor

confidence. It would be good to see
manufacturing capacity coming online, observes
PwCs ORegan. That would be quite a signal to
the whole supply chain. That would give people
confidence.
Overall, despite the many challenges the sector
still faces, experts remain bullish that the project
pipeline will cement the UKs position as the
worlds leading offshore wind market. If you take
Rounds One, Two and Three, the Scottish Territorial
Waters and extension projects, there is 44GW of
capacity in the pipeline, says Reynolds. There will
be some attrition, but it is still well in excess of the
Governments targets.

Government has promised to

deliver revenue support to the
sector through the contract for
difference Feed-in Tariffs and has
hinted that the soon-to-belaunched Green Investment Bank
could provide finance for those
projects that struggle to secure
private backing. This political
support has increased the
likelihood of a number of offshore
turbine factories being located in
the UK a move that would
further bolster investor
confidence.
www.renewableuk.com

61

OFFSHORE MARKET AFTER ROUND 3

Pioneering offshore wind company SeaEnergy is aiming to shake up the burgeoning market for services with a design
for a new Operations and Maintenance vessel, and a concept for standardising and lowering the cost of wind turbine
foundations through a flatpack jacket design. Ben Backwell reports

SeaEnergy, which is run by Steve Remp, an

Aberdeen-based veteran of the North Sea oil
industry, sold its SeaEnergy Renewables (SERL)
subsidiary in June. The sale marked the end of a
three-year foray into offshore wind development,
which saw Remps self-confessed minnow
become a major player in the market.
Remp formed SERL in 2008 with his oldest friend
Joel Staadecker, hiring the team that had
developed the Beatrice offshore wind demonstration project, the worlds first deep water
offshore wind farm.
Two years later and SERL had won the right to
develop the 1.3GW Moray Firth Round 3 zone, as
well as the 905MW Inch Cape project and the
920MW Beatrice extension project, both in
Scottish territorial waters.
SERL won accolades as one of the most dynamic
companies in the industry, leveraging its expertise
to make alliances with big players such as German
utility RWE, Scottish and Southern Energy, and

EDPR, its partners in Inch Cape, Beatrice and Moray

Firth respectively. However, the sheer scale of
financial resources needed to develop the zones
and the long timescales involved meant that
staying the course for a small company was an
uphill struggle.
I would have preferred to stay in SERL as a
developer, but it needs such large amounts of
financing that the market was unwilling to support
the funding that we tried to do last year, says
Remp. I dont think the market was ready for the
timescale, although the investment case was
overwhelming to me.
In the end, however, Remp had a surprise up his
sleeve by selling out to a consortium led by
Spanish oil company Repsol along with EDPR
which had never previously invested in offshore
wind. Whilst the sale price around 30.5 million
plus the settlement of the companys debts
was well below the 80 million plus that he had
been seeking the year before, Remp is excited
about SeaEnergys prospects.

SeaEnergy has kept the SERL name as part of

the sale agreement, and has meanwhile been
designing its next moves into offshore wind
services, through SeaEnergy Marine. Plans are
focused around a series of brand new installation
vessels, which could radically increase the amount
of time that offshore wind farm operators can
access their turbines for Operations and
Maintenance, providing what SeaEnergy calls
a Walk to Work solution.
A 76-metre vessel features a hull designed in
conjunction with Norwegian shipbuilder Ulstein
using its X-hull technology, which minimises
pitching, combined with an active roll-suppression
system and a motion compensating gangway
system known as the Ampleman Ramp. The vessel
will allow companies to access their turbines in
seas of four metres, and Remp says this will allow it
to be a determining factor in keeping costs low.
The vessel will also act as a mother ship for up
to two 12-15 metre fast rescue boats and two
17 metre workboats. It will feature high-quality

SeaEnergy has kept the SERL name and has been designing its next moves into offshore wind services, through SeaEnergy Marine. Photo:SeaEnergy
www.renewableuk.com

63

The new vessels will produce big savings in work hours

by staying on site.
SeaEnergy Marines Technical Director, Mike Comerford

A larger 95-metre design has the same features, a

helideck, and more accommodation and workshop
space. The vessels will be able to carry out multiple
tasks such as grouting, intra-array cable installation and ROV/dive support, eliminating the need
for wind farm operators to carry out spot charters
of additional vessels.
SeaEnergy Marines Technical Director Mike
Comerford says that the new vessels will
significantly decrease the risk of serious or fatal
accidents when accessing turbines, as well as
produce big savings in work hours by staying on
site, thus reducing the amount of time spent
ferrying technicians to wind farms sites that are
moving further and further offshore.

Steve Remp of SeaEnergy has now moved into offshore

wind services with a series of new installation vessels

spacious accommodation for up to 60 people, with

an on-board cinema, gymnasium and hospital,
allowing O&M personnel to stay on site for long
periods, operating 24/7. The vessel will also boast a
sophisticated control room and supervisory control
and data acquisition (SCADA) system, allowing
constant monitoring and diagnostics of wind farms
and their individual turbines.

Wind farms are getting further from safe havens,

and transfer vessels have to return to port each
day, so you get limited time on site, he says,
pointing out that operators have often retained
installation vessels in the field for routine tasks, at
a high cost.
Crucially, SeaEnergy claims that the vessels will
provide access 95 per cent of the time, compared
to 2535 per cent using the existing methods.
Remp says SeaEnergy Marine is holding talks with
just about every developer and turbine
manufacturer active in the market in order to get
charters. The vessels need to be ready by 2014,

and theres a two-year build process, says Remp,

who estimates that there will be a need for 30-35
of the vessels in the UK alone.
SeaEnergys other plan is to mass-produce jacket
structures for offshore wind turbines, probably
buying the structures from the COSCO Shipyard
SeaEnergy has a Memorandum of Understanding
with the Chinese company flatpacking them to
the UK and assembling them in Scotland, before
installing them in the big new projects.
Remp is convinced that, as offshore wind projects
get built out, revenue streams shift from
development, and turbine installation to services.
The thing that fires me up is the jacket
fabrication, where we are talking about 9,000 of
the same thing, says Remp, who contrasts this
with the one-off design of most oil platforms.
He says SeaEnergy is in dialogue with a number
of very large entities involved in the sector or
wanting to get involved, and is developing an
integrated approach to offshore wind farms
involving turbines, jacket foundations, installation,
and Operations and Maintenance.
I think youll see us forming a series of large
partnerships with people taking advantage of our
knowledge, says Remp. Our focus has to be on
alliances that reduce cost.

OPERATIONS CONTROL CENTRE &

MONITORING 24-7
MANAGEMENT & REPLACEMENT OF MAJOR
COMPONENTS
PREDICTIVE & CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE
BLADE REFURBISHMENT
TECHNICAL AUDITS

At IM FutuRe we pride ourselves on honesty and integrity, we provide high quality maintenance and
servicing on all types of wind turbines.
We have a highly experienced workforce and are part of the IM FutuRe group of companies,
partnering major component suppliers.

www.renewableuk.com

65

66

www.renewableuk.com

www.renewableuk.com

67

C O M P A N Y

P R O F I L E

MPI OFFSHORE POWERING THE FUTURE

MPI Offshore is a world leader in offshore wind
turbine installation. The company operates the
world's largest and most powerful fleet of wind
turbine installation vessels. With more than
200 wind turbines already installed, MPI
Offshore can transport and install wind turbines
to exacting standards of safety, quality and
precision.
This commitment allowed the company to
break industry records in 2010. On 24th June,
more than a month ahead of schedule, MPI
Resolution completed the installation of 100
turbines in 100 days at the Thanet Offshore
Wind Farm.
Delivered in 2003, the MPI Resolution is the
worlds first purpose-built vessel for installing
offshore wind turbines, foundations and
transition pieces. The vessel is a unique
combination of tested technologies applied in
innovative ways to provide a single vessel
transport and installation solution for the
offshore wind sector.
MPI Resolution, currently in action on the Lincs
project, has been specifically designed to
overcome the challenges presented by the
offshore environment, including limited
operational weather windows and dependence
on high numbers of in-field logistical support
vessels. Capable of operating in water depths
ranging from 6 metres to more than 35 metres,

68

www.renewableuk.com

conversion of the MPI Resolution from a vessel

to a stable working platform is achieved quickly
and efficiently by the application of two classleading technologies. It is manoeuvred into
position by its Kongsberg Simrad SDP-11
dynamic positioning system. Then 48 largesized hydraulic cylinders allow the 130-metre
vessel to be jacked clear of the water at a rate
of 0.5 metre per minute.
Both the 600-tonne main crane and 50-tonne
auxiliary crane have been selected because of
their ability to operate in wind speeds up to 20
metres per second, well above the design
parameters laid out in offshore turbine erection
procedures.
The main crane also provides the capacity
(reach and radius) that is necessary to place a
complete wind turbine generator to a hub
height over 100 metres above sea level.
With a large cargo capacity, capable of carrying
multiple WTG components and high
performance main and ancillary cranes
providing the lifting capacity, the MPI
Resolution outperforms any other vessel
currently installing offshore wind turbine
components.
Launched in 2010 and now operational on The
London Array project, the MPI Adventure
belongs to the next generation of wind turbine

transport and installation vessels. In terms of

jacking speed, deck space, lifting capacity and
positioning capabilities, the MPI Adventure is
the worlds most advanced and most efficient
wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV).
The vessels enhanced characteristics have been
achieved without losing the original concept of
a unique combination of tested technologies,
pioneered by MPI on its first WTIV, the MPI
Resolution.
The experience gained from operating MPI
Resolution in the offshore wind turbine
installation market since 2003 has proved vital
in implementing these enhancements.
Key features on the MPI Adventure include a
1,000-tonne capacity main crane, a 50-tonne
capacity auxiliary crane, accommodation
capacity for 112 persons, a maximum operating
depth of 40 metres (at 5.0m leg penetration
and 7.8m air gap) and an ability to jack with
6,000 tonnes of cargo onboard.
The next chapter for MPI is the delivery of
MPI Adventures sister ship, the MPI Discovery
in late 2011. The vessel has already secured a
six-year charter with E.ON Climate and
Renewables.
For more information, log on to:
www.mpi-offshore.com

REPAIR OPTIONS
Over time, environmental conditions place strain on the grout bond inside the steel annulus between the turbine
monopile and the transition piece, causing deterioration and cracking. James Lawson reports on the problem and looks
at some of the conflicting opinions in the search for a solution within the industry.
The monopile subsidence problem first reported at
Egmond aan Zee in December 2008 continues to
challenge the European wind power industry. IHS
Emerging Energy Research advised last September
that approximately 600 of Europes installed 948
offshore turbines had moved on their foundations.
DONG Energy has said that 164 of its turbines in
Denmark and England are affected, including Horns
Rev 1 and 2, Gunfleet Sands and Burbo Bank.
Vattenfalls Kentish Flats and Thanet fields have
also experienced the problem.

Wind applications are relatively light and dominated by bending, as opposed to most oil and gas
installations, which are normally much heavier and
less exposed to bending, says Lars Peter Nielsen,
Senior Specialist at DNV Wind Energy. A grouted
connection in a typical oil and gas jacket
application will be experiencing predominantly
axial loads as opposed to the monopile in wind
applications, which will be carrying a much lighter
axial load while being exposed to significant cyclic
bending action.

Whilst a minority of turbines use bolted flanges to

connect the monopile to the transition piece (TP),
injecting grout into the annulus between the two
overlapping tubes is by far the most popular
design. As well as other benefits, this technique
allows adjustment of the TP to the desired position
using internal hydraulic jacks. Some connections
employ shear keys (circumferential weld beads on
the outside of the monopile and the inside of the
TP) but most use plain steel tubes.

A joint industry project (JIP) set up by DNV in

2009 to investigate cylindrical grouted
connections, found that grout-to-steel bond
strength is not constant with increasing monopile
radius. Shear strength actually decreases rapidly
as radius increases, which may be because small
surface imperfections in the steel have relatively
less influence at larger radii.

The steel-to-grout bond gives the joint its structural

strength, but bending moments from wind and
waves place high stresses at the top and bottom of
the connection. Over time, these cyclical loads can
lead to the grout becoming detached from the steel.
The grout may also crack and degrade, allowing
the TP to settle and rest on the temporary internal
supports that take its weight (without the turbine
tower) during installation. Carrying the much
higher in-service loadings could result in cracking
and subsequent support failure, or failure of the
TP itself.

It was actually an inverse relationship, says Rune

Rnvik, Project Director at Statoils Sheringham
Shoal development. We were constructing
foundations according to DNVs 2007 OS-J101
standards. That meant our design was wrong on
bond strength by a factor of twelve.
Original design testing used tubing with a
maximum diameter of around 1.2 metres.
Monopiles have diameters up to 6 metres in order
to cope with bending forces. No testing rigs are
available to cope with larger sizes, let alone test at
full scale. DNV is currently building a bespoke test
rig using a section of joint that aims to replicate
real-world conditions as far as possible. According

to Nielsen, the true reasons for settlement have

yet to be fully understood.
Testing showed that the reduction in interface
shear strength for large diameters was large
enough to compromise the static axial capacity of
the connection, he says. The dynamic bending
loading is likely a significant co-culprit. There are
also uncertainties pertinent to the interface
quality as attained in a real-life offshore
application as opposed to that being tested in a
laboratory under finely controlled conditions.
There may also be an issue with algae compromising
the strength of the grout-to-steel bond. You get
marine growth on a pile if the TP is not fitted within
72 hours, says Mike Yeomans, Offshore Renewables
Energy Manager at Proserv. We work with [grouting
specialist] Densit and they require a certain standard
of cleanliness to guarantee the work.

SO HOW DO YOU FIX IT?

The Egmond aan Zee monopiles were filled with
cement to prevent any further subsidence but are
unique in using TPs that fit inside the monopile,
so this solution cannot be applied elsewhere. A
retrofit design using elastomeric bearings between
TP and monopile has been verified by DNV on
previous projects, whilst Proserv has come up with
a solution that involves driving multiple pins
through the connection to take up axial and
bending loads.
We are working with a client around this, says
Yeomans, who declined to comment further due to
a confidentiality agreement.

Diagram showing the how grout bonding the steel tubes between a turbine's monopile
and its transition piece can become detached or crack. Photo: DNV

www.renewableuk.com

69

Conical section grouted connections perform well but are

more difficult to fabricate and install. Photo: DNV

The JIP found a conical section grouted connection

performed well, and this is currently being implemented in the Walney 2 field. Though it has better
structural integrity, this design is also more difficult
to fabricate and is less tolerant of inaccuracy during
installation. DNV will certify this and some other
designs that employ bearings to support the axial
load, but excludes those that rely solely on tubular
grouted connections to support axial loads, with or
without shear keys.
Shear keys prevent any sliding motion between
grout and steel, setting up a completely different set
of forces within the tubular grouted connection that
are difficult to analyse and test. DNV is worried
about very high stress concentrations hot spots
in the grout around the first key in the joint, and
also about scale effects. A second JIP investigating
the use of shear keys will report early in 2012.
You might end up with severe crushing and
fatigue issues in the grout there, says Nielsen.
We need to understand this and its why at
present we dont certify tubular connections with
shear keys for large diameter monopiles for wind
turbines as a stand-alone solution. Pending the
outcome of the JIP, DNV may be in a position that
will give us confidence in certifying axial capacity
for cylindrical connections with shear keys.
GL Garrad Hassan, the industrys other certifying
body, also no longer certifies simple tubular
grouted connections, but has a different opinion
on shear keys.
Cylindrical grouted connections with shear keys
are the preferred option, says Marcus Klose, Head
of Group, Renewables Certification at GL Industrial
Services. For other solutions like conical
connections or elastomeric bearings, there is no
broad database of experience. It should be decided
carefully on an individual basis if the design
concept can be certified.
Continuing uncertainty over monopile design has
incurred substantial extra time and financial
expenditure for some operators. In August 2009,
Statoils Sheringham Shoal development had
already started fabrication when a call from DNV
alerted them to the interim findings of the first JIP.

They had just had indications of what the

problem could be, says Rnvik. We formed an
internal task force and gave it six weeks to come
up with a solution that could be implemented
without disrupting the schedule. Modelling and
calculating the loads on shear keys was very
difficult. Bearings were the only feasible solution.
Supplied by Trelleborg, the elastomer bearings will
support the axial loads of the TP and turbine tower.
Rnvik estimates the extra work increased project
costs by 10 million. We developed the solution
in close cooperation with DNV and are in the final
stages of the certification process, he says.
Ramboll also had to abandon its original design
intended for RWE npower renewables Gwynt y
Mr field in late 2009. After evaluating six other
connection options, including grouted conical and
bolted flanges, they chose a cylindrical design with
shear keys and bearings.

Greater Gabbard Offshore Winds Limited (GGOWL),

SSE and RWEs 50/50 joint venture, is in contractual
dispute with Fluor relating to the need for
assurance of the quality of up to 52 of the turbine
foundations. Jim Smith, Director of Offshore
Operations at SSE, has quoted 4-5 million as the
likely bill for the 140 turbines at Greater Gabbard
UK, should they all require a retrofit.
According to SSE spokesman Chris Harris, GGOWL
is currently testing the structural integrity of a
number of the transition pieces to ensure they
meet the required standard, and will begin testing
on some of the monopile foundation pieces
shortly. GGOWL retains the option of submitting
its own substantial claim should the need arise.
Is anxiety over liability restricting the truly open
discussion the industry needs to have about this
issue? Rnvik notes that rumours are all he hears
about the extent of the problem.

We weighted the criteria most heavily to

structural integrity, says Mike Hallett, Team
Leader, Offshore Wind at Ramboll UK. We had
results from Leibniz University looking at shear
keys, but there were still some questions to be
answered so we went for bearings too.

At Statoil, we come from oil and gas, and we have

a bigger culture of sharing industrial problems
across the industry, he says. This problem has no
competitive aspects, and could hurt reliability and
the image of the wind industry. We need to share
our experiences of things that go wrong.

The design employs a wiper and a packer at the

bottom of the joint to help hold cured grout in
place even if cracked. The rubber wipers also insert
compliant stress reliever sections in the area of
maximum stress at each end of the connection,
aiming to transfer some of the load to the main
body of the grout.

The wind industry has already overcome

considerable challenges in its short life. With
offshore development ramping up, there will be
many more to come. Its in the best interests of
operators, designers and manufacturers alike to
strive for consensus on this issue.

With fabrication starting this November, the

project team still have to hedge their bets. The
design allows for the removal of the shear keys or
the bearings if required, says Hallett. We have
discussed this with DNV and while there are a still
a few question marks, they are generally happy
with our approach.
As the original problematic monopile design has
been deployed in volume, the total remedial costs
could be substantial. Liability, if any, for these costs
has yet to be determined.

The wind industry has already

overcome considerable challenges in
its short life. With offshore
development ramping up, there will
be many more to come. Its in the
best interests of operators, designers
and manufacturers alike to strive for
consensus on this issue.
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www.renewableuk.com

GET YOUR BUSINESS INVOLVED

A 1.2 million training initiative has been set up in a groundbreaking partnership between the renewables industry
and the Government, to tackle green skills shortages. Fruzsina Kemenes reports.

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills

(UKCES) has given the green light to co-fund the
set-up of the Renewables Training Network (RTN).
A cluster of fourteen members has stepped
forward so far to lead the industrys actions on
resolving skills gaps by co-funding the new skills
initiative dedicated to renewable energy. The
Renewables Training Network will help mature
entrants transition into new careers in our sector.
Sponsoring companies have committed 600,000worth of support and businesses from across the
UK are now called on to help set up the network by
participating in research and eventually subscribing
to its services.
Working for a Green Britain estimates that the wind
and marine energy industries have the potential to
support 88,000 UK jobs, provided that the right
policy and financial levers fall into place and skills are
accessible to employers. The report warns of skills
bottlenecks affecting businesses and highlights the
particular problem of the transition gap the lack
of access for mature entrants to upskill in order to
make the most of the new career openings.
The lack of industry-specific, quality benchmarked
transition training institutions, courses and tutors
is acting as a constraint and risk for renewable
energy companies. This is specifically what the new
initiative sets out to address.
Those who look to enter renewables from other
walks of life bring great experience and value to
businesses as new employees. However, the leap
from generalist to renewables expert is difficult to
make. Individuals can only get there by learning on
the job and making mistakes or through long-lead
time courses such as degrees. The latter may be
impractical or seen as overkill for someone who has
worked in a similar profession for years. Both
individuals and companies can therefore be put off
transitioning, and this is exasperating the lack of
access to good quality recruits. The RTN will play a
critical role, ensuring that the avenues of fast-tracking
generalists to experts become available, says David
Rodgers, Chairman of the RenewableUK SESG.
The Renewables Training Network will:
Increase the availability of courses by providing
a clear market signal of training to providers
the body will monitor and communicate
collective training demand across the sector to
establish its exact needs.
Establish the quality benchmark for
renewables-specific transition courses (the
National Skills Academy for Power will lead on
this kite-marking).
Build up capacity and competence in renewable
energy expertise amongst the training provider
community, through delivering a Continuing
Professional Development (CPD) programme.
Drive down the cost of specialist renewable
energy transition courses for companies,
through collective purchasing arrangements.
Attract and provide access to upskilling for a
diverse pool of trainees.

Through the Renewables Training Network, training organisations will ensure a new array of upskilling courses
are rolled out. Photo: Nordex

The lack of industry-specific, quality benchmarked transition training

institutions, courses and tutors is acting as a constraint and risk for
renewable energy companies. This is specifically what the new initiative sets
out to address.
The Renewables Training Network will be a wholly
owned subsidiary of RenewableUK. Its set-up is to
be supported by 1.2 million-worth of industry
government co-investment. Through RTN,
businesses, colleges, universities and private sector
training organisations will ensure that a new array
of accessible upskilling courses are rolled out. The
initiative is designed to be self-financing by
spring 2013.
Ninety-two applications were submitted to the
competitive 25 million BIS Growth and
Innovation Fund, and it is great news that the setup of a renewables-focused initiative has been
approved. This is just one of nine successful bids,
and RenewableUK is very proud to be one of the
first bodies outside of the conventional skills
landscape to tap into UKCES funding. Renewables
has been one of the fastest growing areas of the
economy, and this initiative is essential for
ensuring that growth can continue and that local
content is maximised.

NEW TALENT BANK INITIATIVE FROM EU

SKILLS TO HELP SMALL AND MEDIUMSIZED ENTERPRISES TAKE ON APPRENTICES
Energy & Utility Skills Limited has also secured
funding to set up a Talent Bank for the benefit of
all businesses, including renewables, that come
under their remit of power generation, waste and
water industries.

The Talent Bank is an employer-led collaborative

solution, partnering with education and skills
providers, funding agencies and other stakeholders
to provide regionally focused skills delivery. The
Talent Bank will be broadly based on a Group
Training Association (GTA) model and will offer
flexible opportunities that include:
Providing a centralised recruitment and
matching service for trainees.
Pooling demand and commissioning and
directly contract managing training provision
on behalf of employer groups, ranging from
entry level to top advanced courses.
Directly employing apprentices and other
trainees, if required, until completion of their
training, and providing high-quality pastoral
care and managing aspects of training. This
service will be invaluable for those
organisations unable to carry non-productive
staff in their head count, or those unable to
provide the range of placements and support
required.
Providing within- and cross-industry
placements to support trainees.

BUILDING UP THE PORTFOLIO OF SKILLS

AND EDUCATION ACTIVITIES
These initiatives are new to the suite of efforts
that have been developed over recent years by
businesses, training providers and public sector
www.renewableuk.com

75

The National Skills Academy for Power is bringing forward

careers outreach, qualifications development and many new
programmes to help all businesses in power generation to face
resourcing challenges. Photo: RenewableUK

INITIATIVES OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES ARE

MAKING IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS
Alongside these pan-industry efforts there is a
myriad of fantastic initiatives that have been led
at a more local level by colleges, universities and
businesses. To name but a few, the UKs first wind
energy training tower for teaching college students
was set up through joint investment from
Northumberland College, Mainstream Renewables
and NaREC.
The college is running the City & Guilds qualification alongside another upskilling programme
for turbine technicians. Some companies have
preferred to train new entrants via more generalist
further education routes. For example, Ecotricity,
RES and Blackrow Engineering are training
traditional engineering apprentices through HETA.
Of course, bringing in those with degrees is also a
high priority for the sector (most employees are
qualified to undergraduate level or above). Several
companies such as RES, RWE npower renewables
and GL Garrad Hassan have set up graduate
programmes. Investment in higher education and
postgraduate training has also been on the up.

organisations eager to resolve the skills gap

affecting the renewables sector. Since BWEA
(now RenewableUK) originally established its
membership-led group for Skills and Education
Strategy four years ago, momentum has been
building at an impressive pace.
The BWEA Skills Summit in October 2008 was an
historic turning point for moving from analysis of
labour market problems to action. Business and skills
policy leaders signed off on Skills Accords thereby
committing to set up the Renewable Energy
Apprenticeship Programme and to start up careers
outreach activities. The Accords formed the beginnings
of the industrys training and skills route map.
These efforts led to the UKs first renewablesspecific apprentices starting their training in wind
turbine operation and maintenance in September
2010. National Occupational Standards for wind
service technicians have been signed off on by the
industry, and the second national apprenticeship
framework is being developed to train wind turbine
installation technicians.
The original City & Guilds O&M apprenticeship is
now serving as a training programme for Siemens,
REpower, Weir Energy, DONG Energy, SSE, David
Brown Gears and B9. The work of their partnering
colleges at Carnegie in Fife, Swale Skills Centre in
Kent, Tyne Met, Lincoln, and Belfast Metropolitan
College must be noted. The investment from these
vocational training centres in meeting industry
needs has been essential for delivery.
Investment from devolved administration
governments has of course been at the heart of all
state education-related programmes whether
they are at the vocational or higher education
levels. An example to illustrate this is the
investment from Skills Development Scotland
(SDS), which has recently developed a skills action
plan for the energy sector and is supporting the
establishment of a consortium of colleges to
deliver all energy-related vocational training. The
Welsh Assembly Government and the Department
for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland

have also been devising new ways of supporting

low-carbon skills. As funding is becoming ever
scarcer, strategic skills policy and investment
becomes ever more important.
A number of companies and UKCES have also
sponsored the set-up of the National Skills
Academy for Power, which is bringing forward
careers outreach, qualifications development and
many new programmes to help all businesses in
power generation to face resourcing challenges.
The National Skills Academy recently launched the
Think Power website and campaign, to promote
industry opportunities to young and mature
entrants alike. Now in its second year, the Skills
Academy is working on a number of renewablesrelated work streams. On the other hand, for
businesses involved with microgeneration, the setup of the National Skills Academy for
Environmental Technologies will be of more
relevance. This organisation is in the midst of
forming its Board, and RenewableUK members
may be interested in getting involved.
RenewableUKs Human Resources Forum is an
important avenue for bringing companies together
to provide a platform for knowledge exchange on
all aspects of the resourcing challenge outside of
training. The Forum is led by a steering committee
made up of a mix of small companies, such as Wind
Prospect and Proven Energy, and large companies,
such as E.ON and ERM. HR professionals have set
up a bespoke reward-benchmarking tool to help
ensure policies are fit for attracting and retaining
talent. The Hay Groups Renewables Reward Survey
is now in its third year of data collection and is
regarded as a fantastic aid by its participants.

There are numerous university courses to opt for

that touch on or indeed immerse students in
various aspects of renewable energy from policy
through to engineering or modelling the flow of
the elements. Most recently, government
announcements for the set-up of new Doctoral
Training Centres have brought good news for
renewables. 2010 saw the start-up of the UK Wind
Research Doctoral Training Centre at the University
of Strathclyde. In September 2011, BIS announced
6.5 million of funding for a new Industrial
Doctorate Centre in Offshore Renewable Energy
(IDCORE). Companies such as Rolls-Royce and EDF
are supporting industrial placements and part
sponsorship of students who will be studying at
Edinburgh, Exeter and other universities.
Key stakeholder organisations have also recognised
the potential bottleneck that resourcing could
pose to industry growth. The Crown Estate is
particularly committed to addressing this issue,
and has not only become a core sponsor for the
Renewables Training Network, but has also created
a bursary scheme for postgraduates studying a
newly created MSc in Marine Renewable Energy
through the Marine Technology Education
Consortium.

YOUR ORGANISATION NEEDS TO PLAY A

PART IN RESOLVING TRAINING GAPS
Inevitably, not everything has been covered here
but the important thing is to bring an everwider spectrum of companies into the fold, in
terms of being proactive on addressing skills
problems. It is only through such foresight and
investment that the gaps will be bridged before
they become a real problem. Without such preemptive action human resourcing will become an
ever more expensive and difficult task for the
sector to face.

RenewableUKs Human Resources Forum is an

important avenue for bringing companies together to
provide a platform for knowledge exchange on all
aspects of the resourcing challenge outside of training.
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77

WIND TURBINE OPERATION & MAINTENANCE

B9 Energy and Belfast Metropolitan College collaborate to deliver the Wind Turbine Operation and Maintenance
Diploma. Chris Corken IEng MIET, lecturer at Belfast Met, reports.

Rescue training at Beennageeha wind farm. Photo: TAG Ltd

The use of the City & Guilds qualification in wind

turbine operations and maintenance is being
successfully rolled out in Northern Ireland.
B9 Energy and Belfast Metropolitan College have
joined forces to deliver the City & Guilds Level 3
Diploma in Wind Turbine Operations and
Maintenance. The Diploma is targeted at up-skilling
existing operatives in contrast to the closely
linked full apprenticeship, which is aimed at
training up absolute novices.
In support of the burgeoning sector skills
requirement, Belfast Metropolitan College and B9
Energy are combining their industrial and academic
resources, to provide a training environment that
promotes the development of skills within the
wind turbine sector. B9 Energy have has been
proactive in working with engineering staff from
Belfast Metropolitan College (BMC) in devising a
system of delivery that accommodates the
working patterns of wind turbine operatives, who
are not best suited to attending regular classes,
given the remoteness of most wind farms.

BMC has developed an innovative solution to

facilitate the assessment of the qualification,
combining the expertise of B9 Energy and a
distance learning course, with support provided via
a dedicated virtual learning environment
incorporating web conferencing and mobile
technology. The diploma, designed to assess the
knowledge and understanding of engineering skills
and competences required to work effectively
within the sector, provides existing operatives with
an opportunity to have their skills and experience
formally recognised, and forms an integral part of
the Wind Turbine Maintenance Apprenticeship
Framework.
David Surplus, Chairman of B9 Energy, said: Our
aim is to meet the customers needs at every level,
and at B9 we take pride in attracting, developing
and retaining highly talented, motivated individuals
to uphold our reputation for excellence. B9
operatives will be assessed against National
Occupational Standards, reinforcing our
commitment to quality and staff development.

Belfast Metropolitan College engineering staff will

complete all relevant Health & Safety training and
a significant period of industrial secondment with
B9 Energy to understand the challenges faced by
operatives, ensuring the standards promoted
within the qualification are upheld. We are
delighted to be involved in this project and will
continue to develop our support for the sector,
drawing on the experience, expertise and
professionalism of the B9 team, says Chris Corken,
IEng, Course Coordinator at BMC.
If you would like to know more about the delivery
of this qualification, and the work B9 and Belfast
Metropolitan College are engaged in, contact Chris
Corken at email: ccorken@belfastmet.ac.uk.

The Diploma is targeted at up-skilling existing operatives

in contrast to the closely linked full apprenticeship, which is aimed
at training up absolute novices.
www.renewableuk.com

79

80

www.renewableuk.com

TRAINING MUST BECOME A PRIORITY

The industry needs skilled wind energy workers in order to grow.
Tim Lezard reports.
New research from RenewableUK predicts that as
many as 88,300 UK jobs could be created around
the industry over the course of the next decade,
but that this target will not be met without
support and investment from government and the
industry itself.
The report, Working for a Green Britain, Vol. 2:
Employment and Skills in the UK Wind and Marine
Industries, says the wind and marine energy sector
has seen unprecedented growth over the past few
years, with 4,440 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs
being created in on- and offshore wind in just
three years, almost doubling the wind energy
workforce to 9,200 FTEs an astonishing figure in
a time of worldwide recession.
This figure, according to the middle of three
projected scenarios, could swell to 55,600 by the
end of the decade, with a further 32,700 jobs
created indirectly through supply and support roles.
The report, commissioned by RenewableUK, states:
The vast majority of these positions will be skilled
well-remunerated roles that will require either core
training in the form of full-time vocational and
higher education courses or specialist training to
help mature entrants switch careers into the
growth sector.
But it warns: Skills gaps are already acting as a
barrier to the growth of firms. It is clear that the
key to achieving any level of industry growth, in a
way that supports UK plc more widely, will be in
having a skills system and training infrastructure
that deliver the right skills, at the right time, for a
reasonable cost.
The message for government, training providers
and employers is clear. If the projected
employment opportunities are to be realised,
training delivery needs to ramp up rapidly in
general with a particular focus on offshore wind,
manufacturing skills and renewable technologyspecific Operations and Maintenance.
The message coming from government about
investing in jobs and skills, however, is not a
positive one; in a new twenty-page report there is
no talk of jobs and just one paragraph is devoted
to skills.
Launching Enabling the Transition to a Green
Economy: Government and Business Working
Together in August 2011, Environment Secretary
Caroline Spelman said: Our objective of reducing

The vast majority of the vacancies will be in skilled, well-paid roles

requiring full-time higher education or specialist training to help
mature entrants switch careers. Photo: RenewableUK

the deficit and strengthening the economy goes

hand in hand with our ambition to be the greenest
government ever.
Moving to a green economy presents huge
opportunities for British businesses not only to
reduce their environmental impact, but also to
transform products and services, develop cleaner
technologies and capture new international markets.
The report boasts of reforming the electricity
market, making it easier for the private sector to
invest in infrastructure projects, overhauling
planning policy and ensuring regulation has a
minimal burden on businesses.
It goes on to say voluntary agreements should be
used to promote the green economy as part of the
Big Society, citing single-use carrier bags as a
positive example.

Skills gaps are already acting as a barrier to the growth of firms. It is clear
that the key to achieving any level of industry growth, in a way that supports
UK plc more widely, will be in having a skills system and training
infrastructure that deliver the right skills, at the right time, for a
reasonable cost.

This voluntary approach is highlighted in the

concluding Government commitments to support
a green economy. Whilst the Government says it
will ensure the skills system responds to the
demand for skills created by the shift to a green
economy, it only says business could help
articulate skills demand through involvement in
LEPs and Sector Skills Councils.
But how will the Government respond to the
demand for skills? Earlier in the report, it concedes,
the transition to a green economy requires a
workforce with the right skills, but seems intent
on passing the buck to other bodies rather than
taking responsibility itself.
It states it will:
Establish a special grouping of Sector Skills
Councils;
Give better careers advice through a national
body due to be launched in April 2012;
Improve the quality of skills provision in the
further education system; and
Raise awareness and understanding of the
green economy through the work of
unionlearn.
This report was quickly dismissed by the Trades
Union Congress, which represents 6.2 million
working people in Britain.
www.renewableuk.com

81

NEW IMPROVED ONLINE TURBINE CONDITION MONITORING

via a TCP/IP communications
link and analysed by either the
end user or by Schaeffler
Industrial Aftermarket Services.
This means that operators can
make changes to system
parameters remotely from
anywhere in the world.

The Schaeffler Group has launched an

improved version of its FAG WiPro
online condition monitoring system.
The new system is more compact
than its predecessor and offers
increased functionality and flexibility.
The new individual modules the
monitoring unit and the multiplexer
are now integrated in a single,
compact unit that offers a high
degree of flexibility for end users.
The new FAG WiPro S is ideal for
permanent condition monitoring of
wind turbines.
Unlike its predecessor, the new system
combines all control modules into a single
housing, which measures 260x150x90mm,
enabling easy installation in control cabinets.
The integrated multiplexer enables the
recording of signals from up to eight sensors.
The FAG WiPro S can save up to 16 separate
monitoring tasks and execute these
automatically. The system is protected to
IP67 and can therefore be installed in harsh
environments, in ambient temperatures from
20 to +70 C.

The new FAG WiPro S

online condition monitoring system

The system monitors vibration conditions

which, if left undetected, can cause costly
unplanned shutdowns. These include damage
to bearings and gears, as well as shaft
misalignments. If a specified threshold value or
alarm limit is exceeded, the system triggers an
alarm. The vibration monitoring data can be
analysed directly on site at the central control
station. Alternatively, this data can be retrieved

Wind turbine drive train (main

bearings, gearboxes, couplings
and generators) and tower
vibration can be monitored as
a function of the operating
parameters. Integration of oil
quality (particles) monitoring is
also possible. FAG WiPro S can also
analyse measurement signals already installed
in the wind turbine nacelle.
The systems predecessor, FAG WiPro, was
certified by Germanische Lloyd and
acknowledged by German insurance
company Allianz Zentrum fur Technik
(AZT), which enables insurance companies
to offer FAG WiPro customers more
favourable insurance terms for wind
turbine installations.

For further information please contact Schaeffler UK on Tel: +44 (0)121 313 5870, Email: info.uk@schaeffler.com or visit: www.schaeffler.co.uk

82

www.renewableuk.com

document, which claims that, far from re-energising

Britains economy, the pursuit of wind power would
drain investment from other sectors, making
Britons pay more for electricity indefinitely and live
less productive lives with access to fewer jobs.
A big claim, but one, says RenewableUKs
Communications Manager, Adam Bell, which is
unsubstantiated and easily dismantled.

There is scope for thousands of new jobs

in the green sector. Photo: RenewableUK

First of all you need to know where REF comes from

despite its name it is basically a macro-NIMBY
campaigning against wind farms, he explains.
Their research bears little relation to reality
because they write the story first, then fit in facts
around the narrative they want to tell. Its a
collection of extremely odd arguments that dont
really bear any relation to one another.
Adam says the main flaw in REFs research is their
assumption that UK industry is incapable of
meeting the demand for wind turbines.
This is plain wrong, he says. Just the other day
Siemens announced they were building an 80
million turbine factory in Hull. TAG Energy has
recently spent 8 million on equipment for its
20 million plant on Teesside, and Mabey Bridges
new factory in Chepstow will employ 240 people.
We know industry wants to come to the UK to
help build these projects it is up to government
and the industry itself to ensure enough people
have the skills to do the jobs.
One company that shares Adams concerns over
skills levels is Siemens, which aims to create up to
340 highly skilled electrical engineering jobs at its
new Hull centre.
A risk to this positive potential is a skills gap that
is real and urgent, admits Mike Jones, Director of
Human Resources for the Energy Sector, Siemens
UK and North West Europe.

Whilst the Government is right to identify the

shift towards a green economy as an opportunity
to boost growth, the report falls well short of what
is needed to achieve this, says General Secretary
Brendan Barber.
Ministers have provided few clues on how to
encourage green manufacturing, especially for
energy-intensive industries like steel, aluminium,
ceramics and chemicals.
The Government has also failed to recognise the
need to take the lead in developing a skilled
workforce for a low-carbon economy, as the UKs
competitors are already doing.
The Government needs to show more leadership
on the economy, otherwise the opportunities for
green growth and the thousands of jobs it could
provide will simply pass the UK by.
That jobs will simply pass the UK by is a real
concern for RenewableUKs Skills and Education
Policy Officer, Fruzsina Kemenes: International
companies may well have second thoughts about
coming to the UK if our workforce doesnt have
the necessary skills. We have a very real
opportunity to become world leaders in this field
an opportunity that would bring immeasurable
benefits to the UK in terms of jobs, the economy

and the environment. Economic priorities, such as

growth through low carbon innovation, needs to
be supported through strong skills policies that can
ensure that the UK workforce can capitalise on
opportunities. Government has a critical role to
play in this and the absence of such intent in this
new report has certainly disappointed renewable
energy firms.
There is scope for thousands of new jobs, but if
insufficient skills are available from within the UK
labour market, companies may have to resort to
elsewhere in Europe to supply essential goods and
services effectively offshoring design and
manufacturing jobs to international competitors.
Working for a Green Britain reinforces this message,
warning that European contractors would be
expensive both to the sector and to consumers,
who would miss out on the domestic socioeconomic benefits the sector has to offer.
The report also starkly contradicts a recently
published Renewable Energy Foundation (REF)

He explains that the firm has put 3 million into a

dedicated wind power training centre in Newcastle
and has launched an apprentice scheme for
newcomers.
Were investing in the UK as a leading location for
wind power, he continues. We see the potential
for a triple win: benefits for the environment by
achieving the transformation to a low-carbon
economy, lower costs for customers through
efficiencies, and growth opportunities for companies like ourselves, and indeed the economy.
If other companies follow Siemens example, the
future of the wind and marine industry in the UK
looks secure. The alternative is not worth
contemplating; not only would the Government
run the risk of failing to meet EU targets of
achieving 15 per cent of energy from renewables
by 2020, but there are the inevitable
environmental consequences too.
If we miss our carbon reduction targets we end up
relying on expensive imported fuels, warns Adam,
and we know what the impact of those will be on
the environment.

International companies may well have second thoughts about coming to

the UK if our workforce doesnt have the necessary skills.
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83

STEPPING UP TO THE CHALLENGE

Chris Streatfield, RenewableUKs Director of Health & Safety, provides an update on some of the exciting
initiatives that we hope will maintain and enhance the Health & Safety agenda impacting on the renewable
energy sector going forward.

Delegates at the RenewableUK (then BWEA) Health and Safety Conference in

2010. The next conference will be held on 1st Feb 2012 in Manchester, UK.

HEALTH & SAFETY AWARDS

RenewableUK and The Crown Estate have
announced the creation of the first ever Health
& Safety awards scheme, to recognise outstanding
performance in the renewable energy sector.
The initiative is open to all renewable energy
technologies and is another example of renewable
industries working together to take a global lead
on a highly important issue.
The main purpose is to recognise the development,
implementation and sharing of best practice in
Health & Safety across the industry. It is hoped
that such examples will act as a beacon to drive
and deliver the highest Health & Safety standards
over what will be a critical stage of growth for the
renewable energy sector. The award will be looking
for initiatives that demonstrate:
Outstanding

Health & Safety performance and

innovation;
Successful sharing of Health & Safety best
practice;

Substantial

impact on risk reduction; and

improvement in Health & Safety
performance.

Long-term

Maria McCaffery MBE, Chief Executive of

RenewableUK, said: The awards scheme is a
tangible example of the paramount importance we
attach to Health & Safety within the renewable
energy sector. We already have an outstanding
record on this issue, thanks to the dedication of
thousands of experts who ensure that risk
assessments are carried out with an unparalleled
degree of professionalism. These awards will serve
to encourage best practice and to ensure that this
vital area of expertise is recognised in an
appropriate manner.
Rob Hastings, Director of the Marine Estate, The
Crown Estate, said: Health & Safety is crucial to
the delivery of renewables programmes, and its
essential that good practice gets shared industry
wide so that high standards are set. We view our
role as helping and encouraging industry to share

The awards scheme is a tangible example of the paramount importance we

attach to Health & Safety within the renewable energy sector. We already have
an outstanding record on this issue, thanks to the dedication of thousands of
experts who ensure that risk assessments are carried out with an unparalleled
degree of professionalism. These awards will serve to encourage best practice and
to ensure that this vital area of expertise is recognised in an appropriate manner.

best practice, demonstrating our commitment to

the safe and successful development of renewable
energy in the UK.
Entries will be assessed by a judging panel made
up of representatives from across the renewables
and Health & Safety industries.
For further details, please see advert or contact:
Peter Garrod, RenewableUK, on Tel: 020 7901 3045,
E-mail: Peter.Garrod@renewableuk.com.

NEW OFFSHORE WIND AND MARINE

ENERGY HEALTH & SAFETY ACCORD
RenewableUK has announced the agreement and
publication of a new Health & Safety Accord
dedicated to addressing the specific challenges and
opportunities of the offshore wind and marine
energy sector.
The Accord is not only the first of its type in the
UK, but also, we believe, a global first for the
renewable energy sector. It underpins our
commitment to help to continue making the UK
the leading safe and responsible jurisdiction in
which to do business.
The Accord provides opportunities to:
Demonstrate clear and visible leadership on
Health & Safety;
Show an industry fully engaged in self-regulation
by confronting the key Health & Safety
challenges ahead; and
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TOTUS: THE NEXT GENERATION OF INVERTER

Until now, off-the-shelf inverters used to
convert the raw electrical output of
small-scale wind turbines (<100kW)
into mains-quality electricity have been
those produced and designed primarily
for solar photovoltaic systems. Such
devices, whilst more than suitable for
the needs of the solar industry, fall short
of the more sophisticated control needs
of wind turbines a function of the
inverter which is commonly overlooked
when specified.
The new range of Totus inverters by
GenDrive are designed specifically for
wind turbines greater than five kilowatts
in size. Unlike conventional inverters,
which require a DC input and hence
separate components for rectification,
Totus can be connected directly to the
AC output of the turbine. Its unique
active rectifier electronic architecture
not only converts AC to DC as required,
without the expense of a separate
converter, but also controls the power
delivered from the generator in such a

way that conversion efficiency and

generator reliability are maximised. This
approach also widens the generating
window of the turbine, to capture
energy at very low wind speeds through
to extreme conditions, without the need
for additional over-voltage protection
systems. Representing the next
generation of inverter, Totus maximises
the yield and hence fiscal return from
the generator, whilst reducing capital
and labour costs through simplification
of the electrical installation.
Lightweight and compact, included in
the single-box package is the ability for
the turbine owner, installer and
servicing agent to remotely monitor
and meter the performance of the
turbine installation. For sophisticated
integrators, a control platform is
integrated in the design to measure
sensors, such as wind speed anemometers, and control external
peripherals such as braking systems
and switchgear.

For more information contact GenDrive or visit: www.gendrive.co.uk

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Engineers at Scout Moor Wind Farm in North West England. Photo: RenewableUK

Take

a proactive stance on Health & Safety to prevent

and minimise current and future risks.

The Accord (see right) was drawn up by RenewableUKs

Health & Safety working groups and is also the result of
active engagement with key stakeholders such as the
Health & Safety Executive, as well as the strong
leadership and support of The Crown Estate.
Speaking at RenewableUKs annual Offshore Wind
Conference in Liverpool, Maria McCaffery said, The Accord
demonstrates our unqualified commitment to Health &
Safety evidence that this is, and always will be, our
number one priority. This has followed extensive
engagement with key stakeholders such as the Health &
Safety Executive and The Crown Estate. I would like to
appeal to all our members to support and sign up to the
Accord.
Rob Hastings added, The Crown Estate welcomes this
Accord. It demonstrates Health & Safety industry
leadership, essential in delivering marine renewable
energy. The accord will support the UK in retaining its
global leadership for investment in these growth
industries.
To receive further information about how to sign up
to the Accord, please contact Gabrielle Lynch at
RenewableUK at E-mail:
Gabrielle.Lynch@renewabeuk.com.

ACCIDENT STATISTICS AND LEARNING LESSONS

Whilst we are confident that we are building a safe
and sustainable industry, with a strong safety culture,
to date we have limited direct evidence to support

THE ACCORD
Offshore Wind and Marine Energy Health &
Safety Accord Looking for Excellence
Learning from Experience

standards at every opportunity, including

adapting to new and emerging risks where
they develop.

As a signatory to this accord [AN Offshore

Ltd] are demonstrating our public
commitment and support to delivering
Health & Safety (H&S) excellence in the
UK offshore renewable energy sector, in
order to continue to make the UK a leader
as a safe and responsible jurisdiction in
which to do business. We are proud to
state our support to a common set of
shared values and principles to enable
continual improvement in H&S
performance. These are:

3. ENGAGEMENT
Adopting a positive approach to worker
engagement and equality, through
promoting a sense of shared values and
responsibilities for improving H&S
performance, and extending this to a
cooperative partnership with our
contracting partners and stakeholders.

1. LEADERSHIP
Taking the responsibility and ownership for
leading and directing the H&S agenda as
shown by the visible and active commitment
of our senior management. This aims to
promote the right attitudes and cultures
leading to mutual trust, cooperation and a
shared understanding, to work for the
common best interest of all.
2. EXCELLENCE
Ensuring we apply a suitable and effective
H&S risk management approach to
preventing and mitigating risks throughout a
projects life cycle and, in doing so,
continually promote and influence high

4. HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Adopting a proactive approach to managing
the health and wellbeing of every employee
by recognising their specific needs and
capabilities, and providing the necessary
help and support to give this effect.
5. SKILLS AND TRAINING COMPETENCE
Ensuring that we strive for the highest
standards of H&S competence by investing
in the skills and training necessary for every
individual working in the sector.
6. SHARING AND LEARNING
Committing to monitoring our performance
and sharing best practice where able, to
enable lessons to be learned and good
industry practice to be widely
communicated for the mutual benefit of
everyone.

www.renewableuk.com

87

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this statement. It is for that reason that one of

the key RenewableUK strategic Health & Safety
priorities for 2011 (and beyond) is committing
to a step change in the collation and sharing of
industry Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and
lessons learned outputs.
In putting this into effect RenewableUK has
appointed Risktec Solutions Ltd (Risktec) to
lead a project to identify consensus
recommendations for KPIs that can act as the
baseline for current and future intra- and interindustry benchmarking and performance
measurement. In addition, Risktec aims to
produce recommended revisions to the existing
Lessons Learned scheme, including improved
functionality and agreed format of outputs.
RenewableUK members, supply chain partners
and key stakeholders will be offered the
opportunity to contribute to this initiative. In
addition to one-to-one interviews and open
workshops, there will also be an opportunity to
get involved via a project website supporting
the consultation process.

To get involved, please contact Chris Streatfeild,

RenewableUK Director of Health & Safety at
E-mail: Chris.Streatfield@renewableuk.com.
Alternatively, contact Dr John Hobson,
Project Leader at Risktec Solutions Ltd,
E-mail: john.hobson@risktec.co.uk or
Tel: 01925 611236 / 07981 734534.

NEW OFFSHORE GUIDELINES

The UK is leading the world in the scale and
dynamism of developments occurring in the
offshore renewable energy sector now and in
the years to come. Whilst this is fantastic news
for UK, there is a growing realisation that,
although we can and will deliver on our
commitments, this will be very challenging, not
least from a Health & Safety perspective. In
particular, we have seen in the last twelve
months an escalation in the profile and priority
being given, quite rightly, to the UK Health &
Safety agenda and in particular in offshore
wind and marine energy projects.
Whilst not trying to stifle innovation or
development of best practice, it is clear that

the industry will need to adopt more

consistent and robust risk management
practices to prevent and mitigate the
significant Health & Safety hazards we will be
challenged with.
In order to help existing and new entrants into
the sector RenewableUK are producing new
guidance that brings together current good and
evolving best practice to address the significant
Health & Safety issues relevant to the design,
construction and operation of offshore wind
and marine projects in the UK. Whilst drawing
on the substantial experience from the UK, it
will also aim to draw on knowledge and good
practice from outside the UK, and be
compatible to allow the guidance to be shared
and communicated across international
projects in support of our aim as a selfregulating industry.
Members and key stakeholders are encouraged
to participate in the consultation process.
Further details are available at
www.renewableuk.com.

Whilst not trying to stifle innovation or development of best practice, it is clear that the industry will need to adopt
more consistent and robust risk management practices to prevent and mitigate the significant Health & Safety
hazards we will be challenged with.

Renewable Energy
Health & Safety Awards 2012
RenewableUK and The Crown Estate have jointly launched
the rst ever Health & Safety awards scheme for the
renewable energy industry.

Submission period:
1 Sept 14 Nov 2011
The judges will be looking for entries that will act as
beacons to drive and deliver the highest Health & Safety
standards over what will be a critical stage of growth for
the renewable energy sector.

This rst annual award is to promote the sharing of best

practice in Health & Safety across the sector.

Organisations of any size are eligible, with the judges

taking account of the resources available to applicants
in their submissions.

The award is looking for initiatives that demonstrate:

t
Outstanding Health & Safety performance and innovation
t
Successful sharing of Health & Safety best practice
t
Substantial impact on risk reduction
t
Long-term Improvement in Health & Safety performance.

For further details please contact:

t
Peter Garrod, RenewableUK
020 7901 3045, Peter.Garrod@RenewableUK.com

The initiative is open to all renewable energy technologies

from across the life cycle of any project.
Entries will be assessed by a judging panel made up of
representatives from across the renewables and Health and
Safety industries.

www.RenewableUK.com

www.thecrownestate.co.uk/renewable-energy-health-safety-awards

www.renewableuk.com

89

TIDAL PIONEER
In the 1970s, well before anyone had thought about tidal energy, Peter Fraenkel, now Technical Director of Britains
Marine Current Turbines (MCT), saw the possibility of water current kinetic energy conversion tidal power.
Elizabeth Block takes a look back at Fraenkels long and accomplished career.

SeaGen tidal stream turbine in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland. Photo: MCT

During the 70s, Peter Fraenkel was navigating up

and down the Thames, testing tidal turbine rotors
that he had designed and mounted on the front of
a motorboat, for the Intermediate Technology
Development Group. As a result, he developed a
river current turbine that was eventually deployed
on the Nile in Juba, southern Sudan, to pump water
for irrigation. Despite two years of reliable service,
the civil war forced many expatriates to leave and
prevented any further monitoring.
Back in Britain, Peter was one of the founders of
the British Wind Energy Association, now
RenewableUK. He went on to found IT Power Ltd
in 1981, the first significant renewable energy
consultancy in the UK, where he further developed
his tidal turbine concepts.

FOUNDING OF MTC
At IT Power he was primarily responsible for water
current technology, together with small-scale
hydropower and wind for the developing world. He
was the principal inventor behind the fundamental
patents and other intellectual property, now
wholly owned by MCT, which he founded with
Martin Wright in October 2000.
After a decade of work on fluid dynamics and
power generation, and several years lobbying the
UK Government on tidal stream power (which led
to the Governments 1993 Tidal Stream Review),
Scottish Nuclear provided 85 per cent of the
350,000 needed to design and build what
became the worlds first tidal turbine a 15kW

The politicians deliver very encouraging rhetoric but so far they have not
delivered what is really needed to remove the uncertainty and kick off the
market. To do this, the Government needs to come to a conclusion in
providing adequate support mechanisms. It can be done and it needs to be
done soon!

system with a single 3.5 metre diameter rotor. In

the summer of 1994, this device first generated
15kW from the cold currents of Corran Narrows, at
the mouth of Loch Linnhe on the west coast of
Scotland, and was the worlds first tidal turbine.
As such, the turbine unit has been donated to
the Museum of Scotland by MCT.
Thanks to funding from a variety of EC and UK
government grants in the late 1990s and the early
years of the last decade, MCT was able to scale up
the technology, first with the 300kW Seaflow
project installed in May 2003 off Lynmouth in
Devon, and finally to full commercial scale with
the installation of SeaGen in Strangford Lough,
Northern Ireland, in May 2008.
SeaGen is rated at 1.2MW at 2.4m/s, and as such
is the largest and most powerful tidal turbine to
have operated anywhere in the world so far.
It has been generating electricity to the grid since
July 2008 and is unique in being accredited by the
UK regulator Ofgem as an official UK power
station the only tidal stream turbine in the world
to become official.
www.renewableuk.com

91

OFFSHORE CONNECTIVITY
With a global focus and wider understanding of the need to utilise new
methods of generating energy, be it wave, tidal or wind, the renewables
sector is a rapidly growing and continually changing marketplace,
requiring the supply chain to change with it to aid continued growth
and connectivity.
Utilising over 50 years of knowledge and experience gained from the
subsea environment, J+S Ltd have developed and installed a range of
subsea medium- and high-voltage connection solutions specifically for
the marine renewables industry.
The company understands the need to be able to adapt and progress
various solutions to meet the rapidly changing demands of the sector,
specifically in the harsh
environments experienced by
offshore wind, wave and tidal
energy developers. It offers a
turnkey solution from design,
development, manufacture and
through to installation and
ongoing maintenance.
For more information
visit: www.jands.co.uk

J+S provides expertise in

high-voltage, high-power
connectivity and distribution

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PETER FRAENKEL IN HIS OWN WORDS

UNCERTAINTY IN THE UK MARKET
Our technology is now grid connected but we cant put more devices in
the water until we have a real market for tidal energy. Were zero carbon
and were in a potentially multibillion pound niche market with great
export potential probably around 200300TW. But due to lack of
suitable ROC banding or other incentives from government there is still so
far no UK market for tidal turbines.
The politicians deliver very encouraging rhetoric but so far they have not
delivered what is really needed to remove the uncertainty and kick off the
market. To do this, the Government needs to come to a conclusion in
providing adequate support mechanisms. It can be done and it needs to be
done soon!

A DROP IN THE OCEAN

We need five ROCs to cover our first 20MW. The financial commitment to
deliver this is a drop in the ocean compared to the gross costs of the
energy sector. Our costs will come down quite quickly as we complete
more projects, but we need that boost to kick off the first ones. In the UK
(excluding Scotland) we only get two ROCs, no more than for offshore
wind, which is a relatively mature technology. In Scotland, three ROCs are
currently on offer, which is not quite enough and not as many as the five
ROCs on offer for wave power.

THE COST OF TIDAL POWER WILL FALL

Our main priority is to get costs down as quickly as possible, not only by
the economies of scale from completing projects, enabling quantity
production of our SeaGen turbines, but also from scaling up the individual
turbines to higher power levels. Following in the footsteps of the wind
industry we know that larger turbines are far more cost-effective. The
1.2MW SeaGen system at Strangford is our entry level system, and we
are planning on delivering 2MW systems as standard with even more
powerful ones under development.

GRANTS VS REVENUE SUPPORT

We did have some capital grants from government, which are appropriate
and necessary to support R&D, but what we really want in order to create
a market for the technology is revenue support. Theres less risk for the
Government as payment is only needed in response to results. Revenue
support, such as ROCs, FiTs or whatever the Government prefers, is
necessary to attract private sector investment into projects; unless a
project is financially viable nobody will invest in it.

LIFETIME AWARD
All these years of work generated not only
electricity but considerable knowledge, much of
which is patented, and provided the platform for
MCTs development programme. As a result,
Fraenkel received a Lifetime Achievement Award at
the 2010 International Tidal Energy Summit.
Equally important, marine energy is now a growing
renewable energy sector. Familiar names include
Hammerfest Strm, Tidal Generation and Voith.
Almost a thousand people now work directly in the
sector, with many more working within the supply
chain. The Carbon Trust estimates that 68,000 jobs
could be created in the UKs marine sector by 2050.
Thinking back on earlier years, when there was
hardly any interest in this sector and scepticism
reigned, Fraenkel admits to being amazed, as he
addresses yet another marine energy or renewable
energy conference, to look out on a sea of faces.
Marine energy may not yet have found a
particularly large market, but interest has
increased greatly.
Despite his commitment to the sector, Fraenkel
acknowledges that tidal turbines, like all new
energy technologies that preceded them, must

The Government provides a generous subsidy for solar PV and the same
level of subsidy would effectively kick off tidal stream technology. Solar PV
depends on largely imported mature technology that uses a fairly scarce
UK energy resource sunshine. In contrast, tidal is a UK technology that
will get cheaper more quickly than solar and uses a much more effective
UK resource, tidal currents. I do not understand why the Government has
not delivered this is a no-brainer!

TIDAL POWER FOR A NEW AIRPORT, EAST OF LONDON

It has been suggested by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, that a new
London airport located in the Thames Estuary could be tidal powered: a
nice idea in principle, although the tidal turbines will need to be located
elsewhere as there are very limited possibilities for using tidal stream
energy in the area of interest. Most of the best tidal stream resources are
between Scotland and Northern Ireland, on the west coast of Scotland, in
the Pentland Firth and also near the Channel Islands.
But there is nothing to stop the airport developers from financing a project
off the coasts of Scotland or North Wales, and using the energy from it in
the south-east of England to minimise the proposed airports carbon
footprint, simultaneously delivering a boost to a new British industry and
feeding investment into the more remote corners of the UK!

start their development path whilst still too

expensive to be immediately competitive with
established conventional power generation
systems. Economies of scale are needed to get the
cost down as the first, inevitably small-scale,
projects need support such as Renewables
Obligation Certificates (ROCs) to help finance
them. I am confident that tidal turbine
technology will become competitive reasonably
quickly, he says, but at this stage support is
needed to leverage the necessary investment to
make the first small projects economically viable.
In fact, on the back of MCTs success with SeaGen,
the company has established a pipeline of
development opportunities. Amongst others, MCT
is partnering RWE npower renewables to develop a
10MW tidal farm in waters off Anglesey, North
Wales, and is working with Minas Basin Pulp and
Power to deploy a single SeaGen system in
Canadas Bay of Fundy.
MCT also aims to develop tidal farms in Scottish
waters an 8MW farm at Kyle Rhea (Isle of Skye)
and, by the latter part of this decade, off Brough
Ness, on the southernmost tip of the Orkney Islands.
The company plans to have its first phase of SeaGen

tidal turbines deployed there during 2017, with the

whole 100MW scheme operational by 2020.
Now that SeaGen has reached the stage where it
needs to be industrialised and deployed in greater
numbers, Peter Fraenkel has decided to retire as
MCTs Technical Director in October this year and
to move on to promote some other innovative
developments for the renewable energy sector.
Im still going to be involved with tidal, he says.
Just watch this space! He hopes to continue
with MCT in an advisory role and he is also a
Visiting Professor in the School of Engineering at
Edinburgh University, where he hopes to be able to
find more time to work with his colleagues.

Tidal is a UK technology that will

get cheaper more quickly than solar
and uses a much more effective UK
resource, tidal currents. I do not
understand why the Government
has not delivered this is a nobrainer!
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OF THE WAVE AND TIDAL INDUSTRY

Vanya Dragomanovich delves into a vibrant marine sector.

scale of below 10 million will be meaningful, he

adds, noting that only a few developers have
technology mature enough to be able to apply for
government financing at this stage.
Projects at this stage of development [precommercial size] need a significant capital boost of
about 40 million per project to get them of the
ground. This [20 million] is a good statement of
intent, but is not comprehensive, says Bob Smith,
Chief Executive Officer of Pulse Tidal. The current
amount will be sufficient for two to three
developers, but if you want a healthy industry, if
you want to have learning and improvement, you
need some five [or] six companies to compete
with one another.
Wave and tidal developers are eyeing the offshore
wind industry for cost competitiveness in terms of
installed megawatts and, though they are aware
that they still have some way to go, they believe the
time it will take to catch up is less than a decade.
The latest funding drive is the next step in the
Governments road map for supporting different
stages of development in marine energy. It
follows the Marine Renewables Proving Fund, a
22.5 million grant scheme that was intended to
speed up the development of renewable marine
energy technologies and was distributed in early
2010. The beneficiaries of the fund were
Aquamarine Power, Atlantis Resources Corporation,
Hammerfest Strm UK, Marine Current Turbines,
Pelamis Wave Power and Voith Hydro Ocean
Current Technologies.

The Government's recent injections of funding into wave and tidal energy development are soon expected to be
boosted by a review of ROC banding levels. Photo: TGL

When UK Climate Change Minister Greg Barker

said in June that the Government would allocate
20 million from the Department of Energy and
Climate Changes budget to boost wave and tidal
development in the UK, the decision received a
mixed reaction from the industry.
Industry chiefs said that the funding initiative, a
targeted package specifically aimed at developers
that already have large-scale proven prototypes, to
help them build a commercial-scale wave farm or
tidal array, is a welcome statement of intent, but
will need to be backed up with some revenue
support in the form of higher Renewables
Obligation Certificates (ROCs).
They also noted that, given the relatively small size
of the package, it could only be distributed between
two to three of the most advanced developers, and

would shut the door on those that are still working

on their prototypes or are not yet ready to build
commercial-scale projects. This could restrict the
playing field in marine energy to only a handful of
developers rather than building a vibrant industry
that is capable of fulfilling the Governments own
vision of the wave and tidal industry, which sees it
meeting between 15 and 20 per cent of the UKs
current electricity demand by 2050.
Government support for the marine energy
industry is imperative at the stage where the
industry currently sits, according to Andrew Tyler,
the recently appointed Chief Executive Officer of
Marine Current Turbines. If we want to get tidal
energy off the ground, it absolutely has to have
some government support initially, he says. The
first few tidal arrays will face the most financial
risk and some kind of public capital support of the

The next step, and seen as far more crucial by the

industry, will be the Governments review of the
Renewables Obligation Certificates banding. DECC
told RealPower it expects to put out a consultation
paper to the industry shortly, in which it will
propose ROC levels for wave and tidal energy.
At present, England and Wales have two ROCs for
marine energy, whilst levels in Scotland are higher.
Marine power developers say that anything below
five ROCs is insufficient to attract long-term
investors and make projects viable.
The division (in ROC banding) between the
regions is not helpful, says MCTs Tyler. You can

Wave and tidal developers are

eyeing the offshore wind industry for
cost competitiveness in terms of
installed megawatts and, though
they are aware that they still have
some way to go, they believe the
time it will take to catch up is less
than a decade.

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95

The proposed Green Investment Bank is only expected to look at ocean power after 2015. Photo: Ocean Power Technologies

probably live with an ROC of 4.75, but anything

below that level makes profitability only marginal
and projects not really worth while.
Pulse Tidals Smith, who is also a member of the
UK Governments Marine Energy Programme
Board, says the Government listened to what the
industry had to say about what is required to help
marine energy reach the offshore wind industrys
more advanced stage of development, in which
economies of scale significantly reduce the cost
per installed MWh. Says Smith, They listened and
they understand, so it will not be for lack of
communication. If the decision [on ROC banding
for marine energy] is anything less than five ROCs
for wave and tidal, it will mean that the
Government has decided not to support the
industry. Anything below five ROCs will make it
very difficult for the investors to get a return on
investment.
Smith adds that this kind of revenue support is not
required for an indefinite period of time. We are
talking about five ROCs until we [the industry] get
going; after that, it will be like offshore wind, and
the cost will come down. But it will never get
going if you don't provide initial support.
According to a report by Ernst & Young, wave
power would on average need a support of four
ROCs in 2020, with the number expected to fall
to one by 2035 and zero by 2050. Shallow tidal
stream devices would need three ROCs on average
in 2020, around two ROCs in 2035 and over one in
2050.

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Angus Norman, Chief Executive Officer of Ocean

Power Technologies, says, You have to start
somewhere. A few years back, when I worked in the
wind industry, I was delighted to have a 250kW
machine in the air. Today wind turbines typically
generate 1MW to 3MW. The rate of rise was quite
rapid once you were past the initial stage, and it
was an injection of industrial companies that
helped build the industry.
Norman echoes the views across the industry
that government backup is needed as the crucial
initial investment that can then be matched by
companies such as utilities, or technology
companies such as Alstom and ABB, two big
investors in new technologies.
The proposed Green Investment Bank (GIB) is also
expected to provide some funding for the industry
in the future, but it is only likely to look at ocean
power after 2015; between now and then more
established renewable technologies would take
priority.
Industry sources also say that, at this stage, it is
not clear what kind of role the bank will play. The
GIB needs to provide capital to the industry and
needs to be patient and less stringent than high

street banks. The message so far is very mixed.

People behind the GIB have said that they want to
operate as a bank and not as part of government,
but have not been clear on how much risk they are
willing to take on, says Pulse Tidals Smith.
The gaps in the financing are also being plugged by
the ETI, a limited liability partnership formed by
six global industrial companies and the UK
Government, and tasked with developing massscale technologies that will help the UK meet its
2020 and 2050 energy targets. In March, the ETI
said it would finance organisations and consortia
that could design and demonstrate low-cost
commercial-scale tidal stream energy converter
(TEC) arrays.
The ETI is currently examining applications, and
expects to choose one company to lead on a tidal
array project and several others that will be
involved in different stages of the process,
including foundation design, power take-off
systems and subsea infrastructure. We are hoping
to have a decision by November, the ETIs Nigel
Richardson says, noting that a decision on the
actual amount of funding will depend on the
project that is chosen and pointing out that, in the
past, the ETI has wholly financed some projects

The gaps in the financing are also being plugged by the ETI, a limited
liability partnership formed by six global industrial companies and the UK
Government, and tasked with developing mass-scale technologies that will
help the UK meet its 2020 and 2050 energy targets.

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The industry is powering ahead with new installations. Photo: Aquamarine Power

whilst in other cases it has provided part of the

finances with the rest drummed up by the
developers themselves.
Whilst state support so far has been helpful, if
marine energy developers depended only on the
allocations from the UK Government, the situation
would be far worse than it is. Other pots of money
available through the EU provide some relief, such
as the New Entrants Reserve 300 (NER300), a
financial package estimated to be worth between
4.5 billion euros and 9 billion euros, to be used for
carbon capture and storage and other renewable
energy projects.
The first NER300 call closed in May this year, and
the UK has submitted one wave and three tidal
stream projects to the European Investment Bank
for due diligence. The projects are Pentland
Orkney Wave Energy Resource (POWER), which
will deploy Aquamarine Oyster and Pelamis wave
energy converters off the coast of the Orkneys,
Kyle Rhea tidal array with Marine Current
Turbines SeaGen devices, MeyGen tidal
stream project deploying Atlantis Resources and
Rolls-Royce/Tidal Generations tidal turbines

in the Pentland Firth Inner Sound, and

ScottishPower Renewables Sound of Islay
demonstration tidal array using Hammerfest
Strms tidal turbines.
The NER300 funding starts only once projects
begin generating power, something that they are
required to do by the end of 2015.
Whilst waiting for key financial decisions to
happen, the industry is quietly powering ahead,
moving on from the 3.4MW of installed capacity it
had in the water in March this year, when
RenewableUK published its State of the Industry
report on wave and tidal.
Aquamarine Power was not reachable for this
article because the Chief Executive was busy
overseeing the installation of the companys
Oyster 800 device into the EMEC facility. Voith
Hydro had sixteen of its units installed on the
Basque coast in a 300kW wave plant that started
operations in July.
Tidal Energy Ltd, backed by investment company
Eco2, was given 6.4 million by the EU to build a

Whilst state support so far has been helpful, if marine energy developers
depended only on the allocations from the UK Government, the situation would
be far worse than it is. Other pots of money available through the EU provide
some relief, such as the New Entrants Reserve 300 (NER300), a financial
package estimated to be worth between 4.5 billion euros and 9 billion euros, to
be used for carbon capture and storage and other renewable energy projects.

full-scale tidal stream generator in Ramsey Sound

in Pembrokeshire, with its DeltaStream device due
to be ready for installation in 2012.
Tidal Generation Ltd, the Rolls-Royce subsidiary,
redeployed its 500kW tidal stream turbine at
EMEC at the end of June, and it is generating at
full rated power.
OPT is working on developing a 500kW device, the
next step up from its 150kW device tested in
Scotland and Hawaii, and plans on having a
demonstration unit ready in 2013.
Not to be outdone, MCT is about to do an
intensive round of seeking investment for a
commercial-scale project, according to CEO Tyler.
The company expects to talk to twenty or thirty
potential investors including utilities, specialist
investment houses with funds for renewable
energy, contractors with long-term interest in
marine energy, and even oil companies.
Though all this activity comes at a time when
the financial markets are experiencing a period
of exceptional volatility brought on by the
downgrading of US debt and the Greek debt crisis
in Europe, Tyler says he doesnt expect this to hold
back potential investors. The current situation in
the markets is not of great strategic context, as
we are talking about very big companies making
relatively small investments that will see us as a
strategic decision, he observes.
If one were to take the pulse of the industry, it
would be strong and healthy at present. However,
a little heart tonic in the form of some finances
would not go amiss.
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99

OFFSHORE CABLE INSTALLATION

To ensure offshore wind project success, subsea cable installation must
be considered fully at the outset, ensuring the risks are understood and
managed appropriately.
For a project to be insurable and financeable at acceptable levels of risk,
common problems such as route design, burial indexing, cable
selection, vessel and equipment availability, field logistics, vendor
selection, crossing negotiations, weather risk and long-term overall
maintenance risk all must fully understood, with appropriate actions
built into the design and installation plan.
When it comes to offshore cable, Global Marine Systems Energy has
proven experience, having successfully worked on such projects such as:
Horns Rev 1 & 2, Kentish Flats, Nord Eon 1, Beatrice and Britned.
The company can assist in all phases of subsea power cable planning,
installation and ultimate maintenance necessary for your project.
For further information contact Global Marine Systems Energy on
Tel: +44 (0)1245 702000 Fax: +44 (0)1245 702210
or visit: www.globalmarinesystemsenergy.com

The Global Marine vessel CS Sovereign conducts the post-lay burial of an

inter-array cable at an offshore windfarm

100

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UK TEST FACILITIES LEAD THE WORLD

A series of world-class test facilities is helping to keep UK wave and tidal energy developers a step ahead of their
international rivals. Lewis Smith reports.

The UKs wave and tidal

energy sector is not only
the worlds leader but
also boasts an array of
purpose-built test
facilities. Photo: EMEC

Whilst the UKs wave and tidal sector is widely

regarded as the world leader, it is increasingly
being supported by purpose-built test facilities.
Chief amongst them are the crown jewels of
marine test facilities the National Renewable
Energy Centre (NaREC), the European Marine
Energy Centre (EMEC) and Wave Hub but private
companies are also providing research amenities
where developers can analyse and hone the
performance of their inventions.
They are, says Eileen Linklater of EMEC, playgrounds
where developers can work on their inventions
surrounded by the infrastructure they need to test
and monitor the devices. It is, however, a serious
business, and the test grounds are essential to the
development of wave and tidal energy devices, with
hundreds of millions of pounds of investors money
dependent upon the results and progress achieved
at the state-of-the-art facilities.

EMEC is based in Orkney, where it benefits from

some of the strongest tidal currents in the world,
with the velocity reaching almost four metres per
second (7.8 knots) during spring tides, though the
area where the test site is located offers up to
3.5m/s at spring tide, falling to 1.5m/s at neap tide.
The tidal energy testing grounds are in the Fall of
Warness, off the south-eastern side of the island of
Eday. Seven 11kV subsea cables lead into the sea
from a generator substation and a communications room, which controls the supply of
electricity and provides a connection to the
national grid.
Each of the cables extends into the tidal stream,
where the prototype devices are connected to
them. Extensive preparatory research measuring
the velocity of the tidal stream at various points
in the channel has been carried out to help

"The test facilities were set up to meet the demands for a place where
prototype devices could be installed and tested in real conditions
without developers having to create all the infrastructure themselves "

developers choose the right spots for their

machines. The area where the berths are located
is about 2km across and 4km long.
Berths available to the tidal devices are at
depths of 1245 metres, and developers install
them themselves, but EMEC technicians
monitor and record all the generation data
and pass it back.
EMEC also has a wave device test area, which is
located at Billia Croo, on the western side of the
Orkney mainland, and is exposed to the force
of the Atlantic Ocean, which has been shown
to have the power to hurl boulders weighing
10 tons or more.
It has five 11kV subsea cables at a depth of
up to 70 metres and up to 2km out to sea, and
they are connected to a substation onshore,
where data is monitored and current fed into
the grid. As with the tidal stream, there are
extensive records of waves and weather in the
test zone, to the extent that the data allows
researchers to make use of both forecasts and
hindcasts.
The wave and tidal test facilities were set up in
2003 to meet the demands of the infant energy
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sector for a place where prototype devices could

be installed and tested in real conditions without
developers having to create all the infrastructure
themselves every time they came up with a
new machine.
Linklater says We are providing a playpen for
developers. Its a plug-in-and-play facility. We are
providing the infrastructure within which they can
test their devices in the sea.
She regards the existence of such facilities as
absolutely critical for the development of wave
and tidal energy devices in the UK. The role EMEC
plays is providing the facilities for testing the first
full-scale prototype machines in real sea conditions.
Thats currently pre-commercialisation. Only then
can they start the commercial build-out to create
the industrial generation of wave and tidal devices.
Its the university for these developers.
Uptake of berths at EMEC started off slowly
during both 2004 and 2006, for instance, there
was just the one prototype machine in place at the
facility but more recently it has found itself
hugely in demand. Almost all of the berths are
now taken.
By the end of this year we are going to have ten
different machines at different stages of testing at
both our sites. Theres been a sharp increase in
activity, says Linklater.
Its only now that the industry is ready to be
deployed at EMEC. They have to go through the
full stage in terms of design modelling, tank
testing, testing at small scale. Its only in the last
couple of years that different companies have
been ready to do that. We have in total seven
cables on the tidal site and five on the wave site.
We also have some other technologies that arent
attached to subsea cables two wave devices. We
are fully contracted on the tidal site. We have
seven devices and one thats dropping its own
cables. With wave, we have five devices and one
cable thats still available.
She adds that the recent uptake has increased the
likelihood that, at some point, EMEC may have
to try to expand its facilities. We havent had
the problem of a queue forming, but that might
change in the future.
Developers who go to Orkney to use the EMEC
facilities tend to sign up to contracts of up to
five years. What we find is that once a company
has installed, they are keen to see an absolute
minimum of four years. Once they have gone to
the extent of fully installing, they want to stay.
Before placing their prototypes in the waters of
Orkney, developers can carry out tests at NaREC,
in Blyth on the Northumbrian east coast, to see
how well their devices are likely to perform.
Such facilities help iron out potential glitches,
improve efficiency and identify design faults that
if undetected could result in catastrophic failures
in the inaccessible environment of the sea.The
facilities at NaREC are still being developed as it
responds to the growing need for a top-class unit
where developers can test their devices at an

EMEC is providing the facilities for testing the first full-scale prototype machines in real-sea conditions. Photo: EMEC

early stage of their creation, with the help of the

units 110 staff, including specialist engineers.
One of its existing facilities is a wave tank
contained within a dry dock. It allows inventors
to assess their early-stage devices, usually at
around tenth scale, in a safe and controlled
environment where small waves are created to
mimic a number of different wave conditions
that would be experienced at full scale out at
sea. NaREC also has access to a facility at the
Tees Barrage, less than 50 miles away, where
early-stage tidal devices can be assessed under
tidal flow conditions at scale.
But what is likely to put NaREC in a class of its
own, at least for tidal technology development,
is the creation of a drivetrain test facility. It is
being created in a dry dock and will enable
developers to test the performance of the
mechanical and electrical components of tidal
devices, apart from the turbine blades
themselves. Everything thats being driven by

the turbine to generate electricity, says Steve

Abbott of NaREC, gearboxes, bearings,
generators, converters, the lot. Theyre all
analysed. Every component can be tested
independently, and ultimately we can test the
whole system together.
It has been designed to allow parts to be tested
through a force actuation system, to replicate the
pressures they will experience in the sea, and test their
durability and performance. The results are carefully
assessed to identify any potential weaknesses long
before the device is placed in the open sea.
It is expected to be completed by the end of the
year, or early in 2012, and operational by the
spring or summer. It is rated to 3MW, which will
give it the capability of being used to test
devices that have a capacity of up to 2.5MW.
A bigger version, to test large offshore wind
devices, with a 15MW drivetrain, is in an earlier
stage of construction and should be operational
by the middle of 2013.

"Uptake of berths at EMEC started off slowly, but ... almost all of the berths are now taken."
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103

NEW CABLE ID SOLUTION

Leading manufacturer of cable management solutions, HellermannTyton,
has extended its identification product range with the introduction of
the M-BOSS Lite stainless steel marking system.
M-BOSS Lite has been specially developed for the identification of cables
and is able to emboss characters directly onto stainless steel markers
using HellermannTytons new improved MBT stainless steel ties. The
printer is cost effective, with simple-to-use software, and is lightweight
in design at only 35kg.
The company will be exhibiting at RenewableUK in Manchester on 25th27th October 2011, at Stand 26, where it will also be featuring its range
of enclosures, fastening and fixing products, installation devices and
cable protection product ranges.
Also on show will be the HelaGuard range of metallic and non-metallic
conduits and fittings. HelaGuard has been designed to provide
protection to cables and, dependent on the IP rating chosen, can offer an
environmental seal against oils, dirt, dust and moisture.
For further information, contact HellermannTyton on
Tel: +44 (0)1922 458151 or visit: www.hellermanntyton.co.uk

The M-BOSS Lite for

cable identification

104

www.renewableuk.com

Another facility under development at NaREC is an adaptation of its

existing wind turbine blade testing capability to allow tidal blades to be
tested. The facility is expected to be ready by the end of this year, and the
tests should save developers money, says Abbott. There have been failures
out at sea. The blade breaks and they have to retrieve the whole device
its hugely costly. Weve been doing blade testing on wind turbines for a
number of years, and we are looking into the feasibility of adapting the test
facility to handle smaller, more rigid tidal turbine blades at full scale.
He adds, We believe machines have been going into the water too early. At
NaREC we can undertake accelerated lifetime testing in a controlled
environment. Its a unique capability. When a device gets to full scale you
can see, before it goes into the water, how it performs under the pressures
it will experience in the sea.
Once youve dropped them into the water, theres almost no going back.
Every time a device fails, it affects the confidence of the market. We can
help the industry to de-risk the technology and improve market confidence.
to invest in its continued growth.
The third major UK facility designed to help marine energy developers
shepherd their creations from idea to commercial reality is the Wave Hub,
off the north Cornish coast at Hayle. It is specifically intended to provide
an area where wave energy devices can be tested in arrays, rather than as
stand-alone machines.
Claire Gibson, Wave Hubs General Manager, describes it as the worlds
largest and most technologically advanced site for testing and developing
wave energy arrays and says that when it is fully operational, hopefully
during 2013, it will provide an invaluable service. There are no sites
currently that can test arrays. There could be impacts between the devices.
Until companies have deployed them in numbers, they arent going to
know what these impacts are.
The project was the result of the South West Regional Development
Agency asking the marine energy industry in 2003 what was needed to
help get devices off the drawing board and into the water as commercial
ventures. The answer was a test bed for arrays, which some put as the
Valley of Death phase, because it represents make-or-break time for
developers.

One of the main aims of Wave Hub is to give developers the facilities they
need whilst still being affordable which would be impossible if they each
had to create such test grounds for themselves.
Its quite expensive when you are looking at deploying several machines
but you still havent proven they are commercially viable, says Gibson.
Hopefully, the facility weve built will enable the cost to be somewhat
more manageable.
The essence of Wave Hub is an underwater hub at a depth of 52 metres,
with four cables, or tails, to which devices can be attached and tested, and
a 25km subsea cable that brings all the electricity they generate to an
onshore substation. The project has permission to operate across an 8km2
area, and offers four different berths for developers and their arrays, each
with a five megawatt capacity.
Almost all of the hardware for Wave Hub is now in place. Safety buoys to
indicate to shipping the no-go safety zone are expected to be installed
early in 2012, and soon after that it is hoped that the Wave Hub itself can
be tested before being declared fully operational. As part of the testing
process, a wave energy developer has been invited to install one of its
devices.
One of the Coalition Governments first announcements was the abolition
of the South West and other RDAs, but with ministers having pledged that
Wave Hub will go ahead as planned, the Department of Business,
Innovation and Skills (BIS) was expected to be announced as taking over
ownership of the facility. Whichever body has overall control of the project
when it goes operational, a not-for-profit company is intended to be set
up to run it, with the eventual expectation that it will be privatised.
Gibson says the cost of using the Wave Hub is undergoing a review.
Original estimates that hire of each berth would cost 300,000350,000
to cover the 1 million annual running costs may well come down. Its
fair to say the industry would like this to be a free facility. It cant be free,
but we need to see what we can do to support them.
She is confident that Wave Hub will prove vital to the marine energy
industry, and says there is plenty of interest from developers in installing

NEW DIRECTOR FOR HEIGHTEC GROUP

Keith Jones, Managing
Director of the Heightec
Group Ltd (heightec) is
pleased to announce the
appointment of David
Thomas (right) as a director.
This is a significant new
appointment for the
company, which provides
technical equipment,
specialist training and
operational support services
to industrial height safety
and rescue professionals
worldwide. David is well
known and well respected
in the industry, being a
principal specialist inspector with HSE until 2007 with special
responsibilities for technical policy-making related to work at height.
He also has extensive experience of the development of best
practice.
Davids responsibilities will particularly focus on further
development of heightecs training services, delivery of best practice
and on the application of heightec systems in industry. He will also
represent the company on committees and industry bodies.
Keith Jones said: David brings a great deal of experience and
knowledge to heightec. Technical excellence is a very important
component of the heightec brand and David will further enhance our
position of technical leadership within our industry.
www.heightec.com

www.renewableuk.com

105

106

www.renewableuk.com

devices in 2013, including one, Ocean Power

Technologies, that has already paid a deposit for
deploying at the facility. Amongst the private
facilities available to developers is the enormous
tank owned by QinetiQ, a company more-readily
associated with defence, security and aerospace
products.

NaREC is creating a drivetrain facility to test devices with a

capacity of up to 2.5 megawatts. Photo: NaREC

The Ocean Basin tank is 122m long and 61m wide,

the biggest covered water space in Europe, and is
usually used for hydrodynamic testing of ships and
other vessels, but it can also be hired for experiments
on wave energy machines. The tank, at Haslar, near
Portsmouth on the south coast, has wave-making
equipment to mimic a variety of sea conditions.
And there is, on occasion, the wave tank owned by
Voith Hydro Wavegen, based in Inverness. It has a
row of eight computer-controlled paddles, which are
manipulated to create highly repeatable patterns of
waves, whether regular, irregular or multidirectional,
whilst sensors detect water movements and help
ensure the wave quality is retained.
For now, however, the company has so much of its
own energy generation research to carry out that it
is maintaining exclusive use of the tank. We are
using our facility for our own development, says
David Gibb. We are using it full-time.

"The answer was a test bed for

arrays, which some put as the
'Valley of Death' phase,
because it represents make-or-break
time for developers."

www.renewableuk.com

107

C O M P A N Y

P R O F I L E

MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS FOR OFFSHORE WIND FARMS

The international wind power market is
continuing to achieve record growth, and wind
power continues to be the worlds fastestgrowing energy source experiencing annual
growth of over 30 per cent. According to industry
analysts, wind power has the potential to be an
80 billion annual business, meeting
12 per cent of the worlds energy needs, by 2020.
Philip Howell, Business Development Manager for
Utilities and Operators at cable experts Nexans,
looks at their role in the market.
Currently, wind power can produce enough
electricity to satisfy the needs of 50 million
people worldwide. Today, some 73 per cent of
global wind energy is produced and consumed
in Europe.
The rapid growth in wind power is being driven
by an increasing shift to offshore installations,
the steady up-scaling of wind turbine power
output, rising energy demand around the world,
and a growing political will to make more use of
alternative energy sources.
Meeting this challenge demands new kinds of
expertise. As greater numbers of turbines are
installed, with ever-higher individual power
output, there is a need for additional power
network capacity, with multiple, high-reliability
connections to existing power grids.
In Europe, most new wind power projects are
offshore installations, with some wind farms
being built as much as 200km from land.
Transmitting power over these long distances

requires specialised submarine cables, maritime

installation expertise, and a mastery of longdistance power transmission techniques.
Another challenge with wind power is the
inherently variable energy levels with
sometimes rapid change between minimum
and maximum output, according to wind speed.
Today's power grids were built for relatively
stable power sources.
As wind farm operators and power utilities
prepare to meet future demands, therefore,
the transmission and distribution network is a
key consideration. One critical area for
consideration is the onshore and subsea cables
and connectors.
It is worth checking whether the cabling
supplier can offer a full range of cables to meet
the strict industrial standards and challenging
operating conditions of offshore wind power
installations. Cable suppliers also need the
engineering expertise and consulting services to
assist in the design stage of the project
including the ability to conduct detailed
feasibility studies.
Depending on the project, wind farm operators
may also find it valuable to work with partners
who can offer full turnkey installation
capabilities across transmission and distribution
networks. Many projects demand full mastery
of installation both in remote land-based and
offshore sites, and may require specialized
installation equipment.

Nexans have been involved in several high-profile offshore wind power projects

Philip Howell, Business Development Manager

Utilities and Operators, Nexans

Nexans has been involved in several high-profile

offshore wind power projects. In 2009 it was
awarded a 50 million submarine high-voltage
power cable contract for Centricas Lincolnshire
offshore wind farm project. Nexans also won a
contract worth approximately 100 million to
design, manufacture and supply the highvoltage subsea power export cables that will
connect the London Array wind farm to the UK.
By using the right cable supplier, with the right
expertise, products and equipment for end-toend transmission, as well as distribution
connections for offshore wind power projects,
wind farm operators can ensure they meet
necessary international standards and
successfully deliver the sustainable energy
source the world is demanding.

About Nexans
Nexans is the worlds leading cable expert. It
offers an extensive range of cables and cabling
systems across the power, industry, construction
and networking markets. The company is active
across many market sectors, including oil & gas,
shipbuilding, energy, transport, telecoms,
nuclear power, automotive, electronics,
aeronautics, material handling and automation.
To find out more about Nexans, visit the team
on Stand 233 at RenewableUK, Manchester,
2527 October 2011 or go to: www.nexans.com

www.renewableuk.com

109

CAN WIND LEARN FROM OIL AND GAS?

James Lawson looks at how the emerging offshore wind industry can use the experiences of the declining offshore
oil and gas industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Offshore wind is now where North Sea oil was in
the 60s, 70s and early 80s: pushing the limits of
what is possible, making some mistakes and
learning at every turn. As the oil and gas sector has
decades of hard-won, far-offshore experience,
perhaps they have something to offer?

A support vessel at the Horns Rev offshore wind farm. Working

offshore provides many unique challenges and the oild and gas
industries have developed considerable knowledge for wind farm
developers to learn from. Photo: RenewableUK

I have to declare an interest here, having worked

in oil services myself some years ago. By the 90s
at least, there always seemed to be a proven
procedure to follow. When things went awry in my
line of work, as they did all too often, there would
be someone to call who had seen the same tool
fail in Saudi in 1982 and knew how to fix it. A lack
of experience and smaller budgets in offshore
renewables are the first things that oil industry
veterans mention.
Before a meeting to discuss a big new
development, I asked the client about his
experience, says John Morse, Manager of the
Renewables Group at Gardline Surveys. It turned
out he had never been involved in building a wind
farm before, let alone an offshore one.
Morse thinks this immaturity is apparent in some
contractors involved in the first two development
rounds. Their understanding of the deep-water
environment can be rather nave, he says. Vessels
end up too far from their home port or theres not
enough beds on board. These are schoolboy errors.
Martin Shaw, Offshore Engineering and Operations
Manager at Pelamis Wave Power, manages all the
subsea equipment, cabling and moorings for his
companys test programmes, but worked for a
decade in seismic acquisition at Atlas Wireline.
There is certainly a similarity between this and
offshore oil, he says. If a plan doesnt work first
time, youve got to sort it out and make it work.
Youre under time and financial pressure in both
industries.
However, Shaw thinks offshore renewables needs
to develop more of a driven can-do culture.
Theres an attitude that comes from working in a
world where lost time can cost a lot of money, he
says. Youre very conscious of the cost of
downtime. Academics and onshore staff without
the offshore background dont have the same
mentality. Penny-pinching can also result in much
greater costs.
Making sure that theres a spare for that essential
electrical part or having a backup ROV when the
job will stop dead without one is standard offshore
oil practice. Hydrocarbons are so valuable that
expenditure like this is utterly insignificant
compared to income over the life of a large field.
Because of this approach, Morse thinks that, a lot
of renewables developers feel that oil and gas is
over-engineered and expensive.

With less cash available, of course you can shave

costs, says Shaw. But you need to get the
balance right or it becomes a false economy. The
difference in renewables is in the lack of a support
network and the lack of money. I have a
department of four, and we do everything from
arranging travel to design, permits and booking
pilots.
Offshore oils willingness to pay what it takes can
also lead to whacking cost variations unacceptable
to wind farm developers. Vessel day rates are the
prime example.
Its an extremely volatile market, says Shaw. Ive
seen the day rate for 80m anchor handlers at
5,000, but it was up to 200,000 at its peak a few
years ago. It depends how many boats are sitting
in Aberdeen harbour.
A gold-plated solution is not always applicable to
wind, says David McVeigh, Sales and Marketing
Manager at Harland and Wolff. NORSOC is a
Norwegian oil and gas standard thats starting to
creep into wind, but its overdone. Were now being
asked to tender for systems that are substantially
over-specced. Why increase cost for no reason?
Of course, oil and gas has also invested large sums
in developing ways to reduce costs. Anti-corrosion
rig coatings are directly applicable to turbines;
could wet-connection technology for subsea
cabling be next?

Renewables is a brand new venture for us and we

want to help reduce the cost of offshore wind,
says Trevor Thistlethwaite, Business Manager for
the Renewables Division at Expro Connectors and
Measurements. Thistlethwaite has a 25-year
history in the oil industry, first in drilling and then
as a design engineer.
Our products are designed to work ultra-reliably
in harsh subsea environments with sand, silt and
high tidal flows. Where theres a limited window
for installation, you have to connect cables quickly,
so its better to use a wet connection rather than
hauling cables onto a boat and splicing them.
According to Thistlethwaite, all subsea cables in
offshore wind are currently hard-wired, because
thats how its done on land. Theres an
opportunity here to change current practice and
some are open to new suggestions, he adds, but
theres also some reluctance to embrace some of
the oil and gas experience.
Design, fabrication and installation are where oil
and wind have crossed over most so far; from
jackets to heavy lifting, offshore wind is able to
borrow heavily from oils technology catalogue.
Weve got 40 years of experience and weve
seen the challenges before, says McVeigh,
whose company built Seaquest, the BP semisubmersible rig that first found oil in the North
Sea in 1969.

Design, fabrication and installation are where oil and wind have crossed over most so far; from jackets to heavy
lifting, offshore wind is able to borrow heavily from oils technology catalogue.
www.renewableuk.com

111

PIXA HANDS-FREE LIGHTING

The Petzl PIXA range is an exciting development in industrial hands-free
lighting. Robust, waterproof and resistant to a wide range of chemicals,
the PIXA is the perfect accompaniment to anyone working in the
toughest environments.
There are three PIXA models, allowing for:
Specific close-up lighting, or
A mixed beam for close-range work and movement
A multi-beam allowing long-range vision at 55 metres and 50 lumens
All the head torches have regulated, constant lighting, ensuring that the
light remains at a steady brightness. Each beam pattern is clean and is
delivered from the highest technological components.
Other key features include:

Easy-to-use rotating side switch

Lamp body can be rotated through 45 degrees
Very robust excellent resistance to falls (2m) and impacts (80kg)
Comfortable adjustable headband, easily detachable for washing
Atex Zone 2 compatible
IP 67 waterproof to -1m and resistant to chemicals
2x AA batteries (alkaline, rechargeable and lithium compatible)
Three year guarantee

For further information contact Lyon Equipment,

email: rinaldo@lyon.co.uk or for a video and product details, including
standards documentation, visit: www.petzl.com

Robust head torches from Petzl

112

www.renewableuk.com

Offshore wave energy has the potential to be one of the most environmentally
benign forms of electricity generation. Photo: Pelamis Wave Power Ltd

A lot of the problems have already been solved.

There might be an off-the-shelf product that
might only need a slight change to do the job.
Its not just about the hardware either. Managing
big projects is extremely complicated, and thats
where oil and gas has particular experience. We
have built up a supply chain over many years and
know the best suppliers in Europe and further
afield. Thats not always the case in the wind
industry, he says, noting the troubles with
welding quality on Chinese-built turbine towers
at Greater Gabbard.
To what extent should the deeply embedded UK
oil and gas safety culture be transferred to offshore
wind? Unmanned turbines have considerably fewer
hazards than production platforms pumping
millions of gallons of crude, but there have already
been multiple fatalities during installation.
HSE is number one in oil and gas, says
McVeigh. If your standards arent high enough,
you dont get to quote for the job. Safely dealing
with heavy lifts, working in confined spaces,
running a permit system these are just daily
processes proven to be safe and effective over
many years.
Agreed safety standards help remove the
confusion caused by multiple sets of similar
regulations and also drive down costs. For example,
35 oil companies now use the Vantage POB
system originally agreed in the UK.

The oil industry had a lot of fishermen and exNavy men coming in, but the new renewables staff
are completely unfamiliar with the territory, says
Morse, whose company now offers an Offshore
Turbine Transfer course in conjunction with Petans.
They need real-world training before they climb
onto a turbine. The wind industry is far more
receptive to the need for this than it was a few
years ago.
Common standards, promoted in oil by initiatives
such as LOGIC (Leading Oil and Gas Industry
Competitiveness), could also benefit renewables in
many areas besides safety.
Because offshore wind projects are now so big, the
learning from joint ventures in oil and gas is of
increasing interest to renewables, says Chris Towner
at Bond Pearce LLP, who chairs bi-monthly talks on
standardisation at RenewableUK. One example is,
even if you have a 50/50 joint venture, you should
nominate one partner as the lead operator. Another
is to set up a new company and second staff, which
is standard practice in oil and gas.
Mutual Hold Harmless also means that everybody
concerned knows what their risks are, adds Towner.
Theres nothing formalised in renewables. We
might possibly develop it under the RenewableUK
umbrella.
Towner thinks that it would be well worth
amending some of oils standard form contracts.
We need industry buy-in for this, he says. In

procurement, we are using eight different

prequalification systems. FPAL is the standard in oil
and gas.
A central procurement system would alert
suppliers to upcoming projects, and would be
easier and quicker to quote on. We want a rolling
twelve-month view of upcoming tenders, says
Towner. It lets the supply chain respond promptly
and accurately to tenders, and you also get better
quality tenders.
It might also help UK businesses raise their paltry
15 per cent share of the renewables market. Oil
and gas was at that level back in the 70s, says
Towner. There was a lot of arm twisting to
increase that back then, but European competition
rules prevent DECC from taking any action.
Its not all one-way traffic. Offshore oil and gas
also has the opportunity to learn from offshore
wind as it builds its industry from first principles,
for example in making the best use of modern
computing. But for now, oil and gas has far more
to offer in the way of hard-learned lessons.
Renewable industry practice is evolving very
quickly, and currently its down to each developer,
says Morse. A common expectation of whats
required offshore is essential. There are meant to
be 6,000 turbines installed by 2020, when there
have been fewer than 400 installed in the last 25
years. If you are in a rush, you are more likely to
make mistakes.

Common standards, promoted in oil by initiatives such as LOGIC (Leading Oil and Gas
Industry Competitiveness), could also benefit renewables in many areas besides safety.
www.renewableuk.com

113

INTERNATIONAL MARINE ENVIRONMENT CONSULTANCY

Intertek METOC is a leading international
consultancy, providing specialist technical
services in the marine, coastal and river
environments. The companys expertise
helps reduce risk for its clients through all
stages of an offshore development,
including: feasibility, design, construction
and operation. Key sectors include energy
and water.

Left: Intertek METOC oversees a cable load-out

on Rhyl Flats
Below: Intertek METOCs services include site
investigation and seabed surveys

The companys service areas provide support

for sound financial, environmental and
engineering decisions which optimise
performance and reduce risks.
Services provided include:
Marine environment: strategic
environmental assessments; environmental
impact assessments; permits and consents;
and understanding of planning processes.
Modelling, GIS and metocean: mathematical
simulation and prediction of physical
processes; geographic information
systems and databases; and metocean
(meteorological and oceanographic) design
and operating conditions.

Site investigation and seabed survey:

management of measurement programmes
in geophysics, geotechnics, metocean and
ecology; positioning and geodetics; and
geohazards and site characterisation.
Offshore development and cables: strategy
and planning; marine co-ordination; offshore
HSE management; monitoring and supervision
of installation; vessel and port selection; and
cable route engineering.

For further information contact Intertek METOC on Tel: +44 (0)1428 727800, Email: information.metoc@intertek.com or visit: www.metoc.co.uk

114

www.renewableuk.com

UNDERSTANDING THE REFORMS

Ed Rimmel, Senior Associate with Bond Pearce LLP, examines the Government's vision of the future for renewables as
embodied in recent publications.
The Governments White Paper on Electricity
Market Reform (EMR) was published in July,
together with the UK Renewable Energy Roadmap.
Together, these documents gave a flavour of where
the Government expects the renewables industry
to be in the next ten to twenty years, and how it
intends it to get there.
Government targets for renewable energy remain
ambitious, although the Roadmap recognises some
of the challenges that the industry will face in
delivering on those ambitions. Grid access,
consenting and the development of renewables
supply chains are all recognised as areas that need
action in order to remove barriers to delivery.
In this article, we focus on the challenge of
encouraging investment in renewables by ensuring
long-term investor certainty a challenge that the
EMR is intended, at least in part, to address.

WHATS WRONG WITH ROCs?

The Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC)
regime has incentivised the delivery of 4GW of
onshore wind to date, and is now seeing the
delivery of large-scale offshore wind capacity.
ROC banding has added flexibility, allowing
incentives to be tailored to the needs of particular
technologies. So why change a formula that seems
to be working? Scale is the Governments
answer to this. The level of investment required
over the next twenty years will dwarf the
investment delivered to date, and new investors
will be required to deliver this. The complexity of
the ROC regime and the volatility of power prices
are seen as deterrents to new entrants a system
that removes this volatility is seen as key in
attracting new money.
The other perhaps unspoken driver for change
seems to be new nuclear: how to encourage the
level of investment required in new nuclear
capacity, without breaking the Coalition pledge not
to subsidise that capacity. Introducing a regime
that, on the face of it, treats all low-carbon
capacity in the same manner helps to avoid the
accusation of subsidising new nuclear capacity,
whilst providing incentives to deliver capacity that
perhaps would not be delivered without any price
support mechanism.

WHAT IS A CONTRACT FOR DIFFERENCE?

Of the four key strands of the Governments
reform agenda (see box on right), it is the
proposed phasing out of ROCs, and their
replacement with Feed-in Tariffs with Contracts for
Difference (CfDs), which is likely to prove to be the
biggest upheaval for the renewables industry.
A traditional Feed-in Tariff, of the sort used for
sub-five megawatt assets, is a straightforward
payment of pence per kWh i.e. the price paid for

The level of investment in renewables required over the next 20 years will dwarf that delivered to date

power is fixed for the life of the project and is not

subject to movements in the market price of
electricity. CfDs build on this model.
Through a CfD, generators will agree the strike
price for their power i.e. the price that they
expect to receive per kWh over the life of the
project (see box page 117). Generators will still sell
their power in the market (or through a long-term
Power Purchase Agreement) but under the CfD, if
the market price falls below the strike price, the
generator will be paid a top-up payment of the
difference between the market price and the strike
price. Similarly, if the market price rises above the
strike price, the generator will pay the difference
back to the CfD counterparty.
The intent of this is to give generators a degree
of revenue certainty over the life of a project
i.e. reducing the exposure of generators to
fluctuations in the market price of power in
order to encourage investors to invest in lowcarbon capacity where they might not previously
have done so.
Government recognises in the Renewables Roadmap
that different technologies have different obstacles
to their deployment, and it is clear from the EMR
White Paper and the Roadmap that different strike
prices effectively, different subsidy levels will be
set for different low-carbon technologies. The CfD
regime provides one umbrella mechanism, under
which the levels of support for each technology can
be centrally set in a similar way to ROC banding,

Besides Contracts for Difference, the

other three key reforms are:
Carbon Price Floor
This was legislated for in Aprils Budget. Starting
in April 2013, the Climate Change Levy will
cover supplies of fossil fuels that are used to
generate electricity (previously exempt under
the CCL) in order to top up the EU Emissions
Trading System carbon price. The Carbon Price
Floor will initially be set at 15.70 per tonne of
CO2, rising annually to reach 30 in 2020, and
70 in 2030.
Emissions Performance Standard
A limit on emissions for all new fossil-fuel
power stations will be introduced, in order to
discourage the development of the most
carbon intensive plant. Initially set at 450g CO2
per kWh, the level of the EPS will be reviewed
every three years. Existing plant will not be
subject to the EPS.
Capacity Mechanism
The White Paper doesnt add much additional
certainty to last years consultation. The
Government intends to introduce a market
mechanism to address security of supply
concerns with the preferred option being the
creation of a central body to procure reserve
capacity. However, this mechanism is now
subject to further consultation, with more on
this expected at the end of 2011.

Government will also need to avoid the temptation to tinker with the regime by, for example, early reviews of
support levels, or movements towards auction processes to set strike prices.
www.renewableuk.com

115

How to set a strike price

The strike price reflects the price a generator
expects to receive for its power. Setting the
strike price at the right level i.e. at a level
that stimulates development, whilst not
overcompensating generators is the big
challenge. In a world where broadly the same
mechanism applies to everything from 6MW
onshore wind projects to 1GW offshore wind
projects, and nuclear projects, the challenges in
setting the strike price at the right level are
considerable.
The Government has initially ruled out the use
of auction processes to set the strike price
(although worryingly, the White Paper
expresses an intention to move towards an
auction process in the future). For the time
being, a process of administrative price
discovery will be used i.e. centrally set strike
prices for different technology types a
process which, presumably, will work in a
similar way to the ROC banding process.

Government will need to ensure that strike prices are set at a level that is sufficient to bring
forward the required investment

it seems likely that government will be able to

stimulate (or slow down) the deployment of
different low-carbon technologies, by adjusting the
strike price set for each technology.
There is still work to be done by the Government
to refine the CfD structure. The identity of the CfD
counterparty is not clear (a robust counterparty
will be critical in giving investors the confidence to
invest), and the Government is still considering
whether there is scope for including the capacity
mechanism (see box on page 115) within the CfD
scheme. However, the outline of the scheme, and
the way in which it is intended to stimulate
investment, is becoming settled.

WHY THE LINK TO MARKET PRICE?

By calculating top-up payments by reference to
market price (rather than the price actually
received by the generator) the Government hopes
to stimulate efficient delivery of power. The
reference market price will be taken from dayahead, or even year-ahead, indices. If a generator
sells electricity in the market at a price above the
reference market price, this will be for the benefit
of the generator generators will, therefore, be
encouraged to respond to market signals to deliver
electricity when required.
In principle, this mechanism seems sensible.
However, most renewables generators (wind,
marine, etc.) have little control over when their
assets are generating with the result that the
playing field between intermittent generators and
those that can control their output will not be
entirely level.

This imbalance against some renewables

technologies is recognised by DECC, and measures
will be taken to mitigate the effect of this largely
by applying different market price reference
indices for different technologies the net effect
of which is likely to make the CfD mechanism for
some renewables technologies more akin to a
pure Feed-in Tariff.

OFF-TAKE RISK
The ROC regime had the effect of creating a
market for renewable energy, by imposing an
obligation on suppliers to source renewable power.
Under the CfD regime, this obligation will no
longer exist.
For renewables generators particularly independent generators of intermittent power the
removal of this obligation, and the low levels of
liquidity in the power market, is likely to result in
PPAs being entered into at a heavy discount to
market price. If this is not factored into the strike
price agreed for those projects, this could threaten
their viability.
DECC recognises these concerns, and places a good
deal of reliance on Ofgems project to increase
market liquidity to mitigate the off-take risk.

EXISTING AND FUTURE PROJECTS

The new world of CfDs is expected to be with us in
2014. All projects installed before then will benefit
from the ROC regime. Projects installed between
2014 and March 2017 will have the choice of
whether to use the ROC regime or to operate

Government will need to ensure that strike

prices are set at a level that is sufficient to
bring forward the required investment and,
importantly, that any process of reassessing
strike prices does not detract from the investor
certainty that CfDs are intended to produce.

under a CfD and from April 2017, projects will

have no choice but to use the CfD scheme.
The transitional period, and the option available
to developers, is certainly helpful in ensuring that
the move from ROCs to CfDs will not result in a
temporary stagnation in development. However,
six years is not a long time in the world of
developing, for example, large offshore wind
projects, and investment decisions are often taken
a number of years in advance.
It will be critical that government maintains
stability by making clear at an early stage the
support levels that will be available through CfDs
in the first years of the regime. Government will
also need to avoid the temptation to tinker with
the regime by, for example, early reviews of
support levels, or movements towards auction
processes to set strike prices.
It will take some time for the industry to become
familiar with the nuances of the CfD regime, and
the regime does nothing, of course, to address
many of the other barriers to the delivery of
renewables capacity.
However, in terms of unlocking new investment
from institutional investors for whom certainty
of return over the life of a project is key, the
CfD
does seem to tick many of the right
boxesalthough there is still work to be done by
the Government in ensuring that the manner of
implementation of the regime does not undermine
its good intentions.

The CfD does seem to tick many of the right boxes although there is still work to be done by the Government in
ensuring that the manner of implementation of the regime does not undermine its good intentions.
www.renewableuk.com

117

WHAT INSPIRES VOLUNTEERS TO CAMPAIGN?

The wind industry is, by now, used to encountering local opposition when proposing a project in almost any location
across the UK. Opponents tend to be well funded and, thanks to the plethora of anti-wind websites repeating the
same myths, reasonably well informed too. Adam Bell reports.
These opposition groups represent a minority
the overwhelming bulk of the British population
supports the expansion of wind power. Why is this
silent majority of supporters not speaking up?
There are multiple reasons why this isnt
happening, and understanding them can help us
work with our supporters on the ground more
effectively. The first is demographic. Support for
wind power decreases in proportion to age, with
young people being significantly more likely to
support wind power than pensioners. The rural
areas in which most projects are based tend to
have an older-than-average demographic, which
places the industry at an immediate disadvantage
in attracting support.
The second is opportunity. All voluntary
organisations, from political parties to charities,
rely on volunteers giving up some of their free
time. Their propensity to do so is in large part
governed by how much free time they have. There
are two big chunks of society with significant
amounts of free time and are, as a result,
disproportionately represented in voluntary
organisations: students and retirees. Our potential
supporters in locations where wind farms are likely
to be built are much more likely to be in full-time
jobs and have families than our potential
opponents. They simply have less time to give.
The third is motivation. It is easy to oppose
something tangible, less easy to be in favour of
something abstract. You can be shown a picture of
a wind farm in a location you recognise; its much
more difficult to show someone a picture of how
global warming will affect the lives of millions of
people around the world. It is easy to resent a
change to a landscape you enjoy, less easy to see
the beauty inherent in part of the answer to a
global problem. It is much harder to get worked up
about something that doesnt directly impact on
you than it is about something that will be part of
your life if it goes ahead.
As a result of the above, our potential volunteers
are less in number, have less free time and are
likely to be less motivated than those of our
opponents. This could be considered somewhat
dispiriting to anyone attempting to encourage
volunteer activity around a wind energy project:
but not a bit of it. All it means is that ways have to
be identified to work within these limitations.
Your pool of potential volunteers may be small,
but the broader effort to change the way we
generate our electricity is not. In the specific case
of a wind farm, your group of volunteer

Young people are significantly more likely to support wind power than pensioners. Photo: RenewableUK

supporters includes the company developing the

project. If the company is not motivated by the
project theyre trying to deliver, volunteers
certainly wont be. As a result, rather than ticking
the supporter box by each project, consider
supporters as part of the project team, and
simultaneously the project team as part of the
campaign for the wind farm. Look at actions you
can undertake with volunteers, whether they are
street stalls or putting up posters.
Share information you would share with the
project team with your volunteers, to demonstrate
that you regard them as a joint part of the effort
to get the wind farm built. Dont meet them just
once, do respond to their emails and as in one
notorious case dont not tell them that youre
taking a project to appeal and embarrass them
on local radio.
You know your volunteers have little time, so how
can you make the best use of the time they have
available? Would they put up a pro-wind poster if
you turned up at their door with it? Would they
sign a letter of support if you brought it to them?
Would they be happy to add their name to an
e-petition? Would they rather write to the local
paper than turn up to the planning committee?
Every volunteer is an individual, so you will need to
tailor your ask to that person, to what they want

to do and what theyre less interested in doing.

This may be difficult to remember when youre
staring at a spreadsheet of anonymous names,
but if you try a blanket approach youre much
less likely to succeed. You need to develop a
relationship with each of them to understand
what they have time to do.
Finally, motivation; there is one thing you can do
to turn abstract concepts such as climate change
into reality, and that is to turn up on someones
doorstep and ask them to do something about it.
Its not climate change happening to them, but
rather you happening to them. Motivation is
infectious; if you have it, you can pass it on to
someone else. Whilst doing so can seem distinctly
unBritish, youll be surprised by the number of
people who will state that theyre waiting for
someone to ask them before they decide to help.
If you dont ask them, you can be assured that
the anti group will.
The answer to the question of what motivates
volunteers to support wind power is, unfortunately,
hard work on your part. But this hard work is
necessary; in a legislative environment in which
development is more likely to be determined by
public consent than technical correctness, being
able to motivate supporters is more important
than ever.

Motivation is infectious; if you have it, you can pass it on to someone else. Whilst doing so can seem distinctly
unBritish, youll be surprised by the number of people who will state that theyre waiting for someone to ask them
before they decide to help. If you dont ask them, you can be assured that the anti group will.

www.renewableuk.com

119

FOR WIND FARMS

David M. Goiricelaya, Commercial Marketing Promoter at Ormazabal, explains how medium-voltage switchgears are
used in special wind farm applications.

Medium-voltage switchgears are electromechanical devices that are used for switching
operations and protecting electrical power
networks. Medium voltage is considered to range
from 1kV up to 52kV, and in the traditional power
generation system, where load flows in only one
direction, this is known as electrical distribution.
Switchgears therefore protect and isolate the
electrical grid. Nowadays several insulating
technologies coexist in the industry; SF6, air, oil
and solid dielectric are the most commonly used,
although SF6 has proven to be the technology
with the greatest advantages for three main
reasons, especially in wind farm applications:
Provides

the smallest footprint. SF6 has more

than three times better insulating properties
than air, and better insulating properties than oil
and solid dielectrics.
Hermetically sealed gas tanks provide the
longest expected life cycle on the market, 30
years. Inherent to extreme environmental
conditions are high salinity, low temperatures
and high humidity.
SF6 is not only a good insulating gas but also
has excellent heat-dissipating and arc-quenching
properties.
The three advantages above clearly address space
optimisation, reliability and safety, features that are
key differentiators within the switchgear industry.

WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT IN A

WIND TURBINE?
In the wind industry, MV switchgears are installed
inside the wind turbine tower and in the wind
farms collector substation, operating at the same
voltage levels but with different current and shortcircuit levels. These devices have a double
function, which is to allow operation of the

Typical internal distribution for wind farm protection and operation

network and to protect equipment such as

transformers and cables.
Lets say a wind turbine needs maintenance or
replacement, or that wind speeds are not suitable
for generation; having the ability to operate and
isolate each power source locally or remotely is
necessary for any wind farm operator. This task is
associated with the feeder functional unit.
In the case of an electrical fault in the turbines
equipment or the grid, the protection functional
units are responsible for first clearing and then
isolating the fault from the rest of the wind farm,
in order to maximise energy production.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES?

Most commonly installed functional units inside
wind turbines are the vacuum circuit breaker,
feeder and cable riser units: CGM.3-V/CGM.3L/CGM.3-RC. These are known as secondary
distribution units.
In the collector substations we have similar
functional units but with higher electrical ratings:
CPG.0-V/CPG.0-RB/CPG.0-S, which are known as
primary distribution units.

WHY SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT

GETTING A PARTICULAR BRAND OF
SWITCHGEARS?
CGM.3-V vacuum circuit breaker with three-position
switch disconnector for wind farm protection and
operation

Not all MV manufacturers have been involved in

the wind industry for the same amount of time.

This industry began as a very niche market and

is growing bigger every year, due to the constant
rise of fuel prices, environmental concerns and
international energy policies. The first
large-scale onshore wind installations began
construction back in 1992 and the first offshore
installations in 2002. Ever since, Ormazabal has
had the ability to provide tailor-made products
and solutions to wind turbine manufacturers
and developers.
Experience, value chain proposal and R&D capabilities of the MV switchgear supplier should be taken
seriously into consideration when it comes to
choosing the type of switchgear, because they will
determine the overall performance of the wind
farm in the long term.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO

SWITCHGEARS?
In order to protect and operate a wind farms
electrical network and equipment, MV switchgear
is completely necessary in any installation. There
is a choice of insulating technologies and
constructive designs, although metal-enclosed
switchgear with SF6 gas insulation has proven to
be the most successful of them all because it has
the smallest footprint, the highest life cycle
expectancy and the best safety features in case
of an internal arc fault.
For further information contact the author at:
mgg@ormazabal.com

In the wind industry, MV switchgears are installed inside the wind turbine tower and in the wind farms collector
substation, operating at the same voltage levels but with different current and short-circuit levels.

www.renewableuk.com

121

FOR OFFSHORE WIND

Scotland is driving hard to meet its ambitious targets for all of its electricity needs to come
from renewable energy by 2020. Jenny Hogan, Director of Policy for Scottish Renewables,
reports.

Robin Rigg in the Solway Firth is E.ONs third offshore wind farm and the first commercial
offshore wind farm in Scottish waters. The 60-turbine site began full generation in April 2010
and should provide enough electricity to power approximately 117,000 homes and offset around
230,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Photo: E.ON

The Scottish Government has reaffirmed its

commitment to onshore wind development, but
warns that wind farm developers must aspire to
the best possible practice and maximise
engagement with communities if they want to
get consent.
Officials have issued a new tool for developers
to calculate the carbon savings from onshore
wind farms and are considering changes to the
standards of visualisation used by developers in
wind farm applications.
Addressing Scottish Renewables Onshore Wind
Conference in Glasgow, Energy Minister Fergus

Ewing said:
The Scottish Government has set an ambitious
target for all of Scotlands electricity needs to
come from renewables by 2020. That target is
achievable but maintaining the current
momentum is just not enough we need to go
further and faster to deploy all forms of
renewables, onshore and offshore.
In maximising that potential, we will help the
onshore wind industry deliver the highest
standards of information to communities, the
wider public and to government.
Issuing the new carbon calculator, he said it

would give an objective assessment of the

carbon savings of wind farms over the years of
their operation.
We will require developers to use the carbon
calculator in applying to government for
permission, and it will encourage developers to
design schemes that minimise losses of carbon
from peat. Planning authorities, like all public
bodies, have a duty to take account of the
emission effects of their decision-making, and
they should encourage developers to use the
carbon assessment tool for all wind farms on
peat as a matter of good practice. That will be in
the interests of a sustainable wind industry.

"Planning authorities ... should encourage developers to use the carbon assessment tool for all wind farms
on peat as a matter of good practice."
Scottish Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing

www.renewableuk.com

123

Ewing also made clear his intent to investigate

the standards of visualisation used by
developers in wind farm applications.
He told the conference, The visual impact of
wind farms is a key consideration in planning a
nd designing a wind farm, and SNH guidance
is expected to be followed in respect of
landscape and visual impact analysis and wind
farm design. We will continue to work with SNH,
planning authorities and industry to ensure
common standards are used to allow decisionmakers, consultees and the public to be clear
about how proposed developments would
actually look.
The Scottish onshore wind industry continues to
show its strength in the renewables sector with
a further 600MW of onshore wind entering the
planning system in the last twelve months,
according to Scottish Renewables database.
This progress comes amidst the recent
announcement from the First Minister Alex
Salmond, on his re-election in May, that
Scotland will have a new target of generating
the equivalent of 100 per cent
of electricity demand from
renewable sources by 2020.
Scottish Renewables has
responded by saying that we
will only meet this ambitious
new aspiration with the right
balance in consenting, the right
market framework and
investment in grid connections.

pressures on the industry for ever-greater

community benefit payments and to ensure
appropriate methods of visualisation.

OFFSHORE AND MARINE STEADY AS

SHE GOES
The offshore wind sector continues to move
forward with six proposed projects within
territorial waters securing Agreements for Lease
from The Crown Estate following the publication
of the Scottish Governments sectoral plan for
offshore wind, as well as Marine Scotlands
licensing team receiving its first offshore wind
application from the Aberdeen Bay project the
European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre.
Marine Scotland has announced plans to
conduct a Strategic Environmental Assessment
for offshore wind out to 200 nautical miles, with
the aim of identifying additional areas of search
for development beyond territorial waters. The
team is also working on the revised draft of the
National Marine Plan for Scotland, due out for a
second round of consultation later this year.

Progress continues in the wave and tidal sectors,

with this summer seeing Orkney as a hive of
marine activity with the SPR Pelamis machine,
Oyster 800 and Wello Oys Penguin all on their
way into Billia Croo at EMEC. The Fall of
Warness has also seen activity, with more tidal
projects in the water over the last few months.
Marine Scotland is also working on the wave and tidal
Strategic Environmental Assessment for Scottish
waters, which will see areas of search out to 200
nautical miles. Scottish Renewables continues to work
with Marine Scotland to reduce the regulatory
barriers for marine, such as fast-tracking smaller
projects with a risk-based approach.
The Scottish Renewables Marine Conference
2011, also returned to Inverness for a third year
on 19th-20th September. The conference
featured a mix of presentations and debates
covering the key issues in technology, cost
reduction and progress on early arrays.
Full information is available on our website at
www.scottishrenewables.com.

ScottishPower Renewables have received consent to develop

a demonstration tidal array in the Sound of Islay on the west coast of
Scotland. Consisting of ten HS1000s developed by Hammerfest Strom UK, it will have
the capacity to generate 10MW of clean green power. Photo: Scottish Power Renewables

The Scottish Government

outlined its activities to
progress towards the wider
renewables targets within its
2020 Routemap for Renewable
Energy in Scotland, in July. The
report set new targets of
meeting 30 per cent of all
energy demand from
renewables and developing
500MW of community
renewables projects by 2020.
The document also encourages
the renewables industry to
match community benefit rates
on the public estate of 5000
per MW.
Scottish Renewables is working
with our members and
government to manage

The Scottish onshore

wind industry
continues to show its
strength in the
renewables sector
with a further
600MW of onshore
wind entering the
planning system
in the last
twelve months.
www.renewableuk.com

125

128

www.renewableuk.com

www.renewableuk.com

129

bookreviews

Variable Outlook
Is the right-wing press biased against renewables? A report from the Public Interest Research
Centre (PIRC) on coverage by The Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and The Independent
confirms it is. The majority of the report comprises a rather dry set of figures on the percentages
of positive and negative articles, the types of articles that feature renewables, the sources for each
article government or business and the tone of coverage in each case. Its the meaning of
these figures that is striking: the right-wing papers, and the Daily Mail in particular, were generally
more hostile to renewables than the liberal Independent.
The unchallenged passage of business viewpoints from press release to page also gives cause for
concern: all four of the papers examined used corporate PR almost exclusively as their main
source for any business-themed story. Jeremy Clarkson emerges as the most biased of all: every
comment article in The Sun that mentioned renewable energy was negative and he wrote all
of them.
Public Interest Research Centre (July 2011) | Download from www.pirc.info

Offshore Wind
Billed as a comprehensive road map for successful offshore wind farm installation, author Kurt
Thomsen provides a host of practical advice and examples derived from his industry experience to
help achieve a cheaper, faster and safer implementation. He examines the hows and whys of
various possible approaches, highlighting the economic impact of each financial and operational
choice in both on- and offshore farms, and advises on how to save time and money by identifying
and mitigating possible problems in advance.
The comprehensive coverage runs from initial planning, financing and permit application through
HSE management, work vessel types and coordination, logistics and port issues, on to service,
maintenance and repair. As well as providing a primer for trainees and perhaps filling in some gaps
in more experienced practitioners knowledge, the books prime role may be in helping to inform
the many others involved less directly in a project, such as financiers and planners.
By Kurt Thomsen | Elsevier (November 2011) | ISBN: 978-0-12-385936-5

Build Your Own Small Wind Power System

Authors Shea and Howard offer practical how to advice on planning and building a small wind
system for the home. Starting with the basics of wind itself, they describe how to evaluate a site
and look at the major components of a small turbine and its associated electrical equipment.
Finance options are covered, as are grid connection, building permits, the incentives available and
how working closely with the grid provider can improve system performance. There are case
study examples from around the world showing how the advice in the book can be implemented.
The final chapters review the latest thinking in wind technology and offer a list of resources. This
is the second American small wind book previewed this month and sadly much of the content will
not apply to the UK. CAT (www.cat.org.uk) and RenewableUKs own website are good places to
start if looking for UK-specific small wind resources.
By Kevin Shea and Brian Clark Howard | McGraw-Hill (November 2011) | ISBN: 978-0-07-176157-4

130

www.renewableuk.com

Onshore and Offshore Wind Energy

Aimed at students, policy-makers and professionals alike, this book gives a broad yet
comprehensive introduction to wind energys scientific background, current technology and
international status. The emphasis is on large turbines and wind farms, both onshore and
offshore, supported by copious illustrations and photographs. It takes us through a brief history of
wind energy, then details how wind can be quantified, analysed and forecast. There are rigorous
theoretical descriptions of turbine aerodynamics, their mechanics and associated electrical
systems, such as synchronous and asynchronous generation, complete with discussion of the
key equations involved. Lynn covers offshore opportunities and challenges in areas such as
foundation design, showing their real-world applications in two case studies on Horns Rev 2 and
the London Array. The author then tackles grid integration challenges, such as electrical quality
and coping with intermittency and variability, before moving on to the economic (operation,
maintenance and cash flow) and environmental aspects of wind power generation.
By Paul A. Lynn | Wiley (November 2011) | ISBN: 978-0-470-97608-1

Repowering Communities
Vaze and Tindale make the case for local in preference to central electricity generation, along with
the need to start with the community when trying to reduce energy consumption. To this end,
they look in detail at how numerous cities, communities and local authorities across Europe and
North America have achieved reductions in energy use and built small-scale local solutions using
technologies such as CHP and heat pumps. Amongst the issues examined are how businesses and
individuals can be nudged and shoved into changing their behaviour, the methods used to secure
the necessary investment in local generation, and what government and civil society can do to
foster local action on a national scale. They consider tough questions such as how to raise the
price of energy to reduce consumption and fund renewables, without hurting poorer members of
society, and give their vision of an alternative energy market using Low-Carbon Investment
Franchises that incentivise the move to lower consumption as well as lower-carbon generation.
By Prashant Vaze and Stephen Tindale | Earthscan (June 2011) | ISBN: 978-1-84-971267-5

Design of Smart Power Grid Renewable

Energy Systems
With a European smart grid posited as a key solution to renewable intermittency, this title is
well timed. But beware it is a highly technical work intended for research or undergraduate
engineers. It begins with an approachable overview of the need for and evolution of renewable
generation. A review of current grid technologies paves the way for an in-depth discussion of the
components that would make up a smart grid, how they might work together, and issues such as
load factors and automatic grid control. Keyhani examines ideas such as DC microgrids, bringing
together power system engineering, control systems engineering and power electronics to do this,
and gets down to design fundamentals; mathematically modelling components and employing
simulation via the MATLAB programming language to see how they would work together in a
smart grid is a key element of the book. Wind and solar energy microgrids get a chapter each, as
does the study of fault conditions.
By Ali Keyhani | Wiley-IEEE (July 2011) | ISBN: 978-0-470-62761-7
www.renewableuk.com

131

notices & events

RENEWABLEUK
HEALTH & SAFETY 2012
RenewableUKs 8th annual Health and
Safety Conference comes to the Hilton
Hotel in Manchester. With a keynote
address from Judith Hackett of the
Health and Safety Executive, the 2012
conference also features the first ever
Health and Safety Awards Scheme,
sponsored by The Crown Estate.

RENEWABLEUK REGIONAL PLANNING

SEMINARS JUNESEPTEMBER 2012
Between June and September 2012,
RenewableUK will once again hold a
series of FREE regional planning seminars
aimed exclusively at councillors and local
authority planners. The sessions will
cover the potential benefits of wind
energy in the UK, UK energy policy,
regional and UK environmental and
planning policy and technical issues
relating to wind farm development. The
seminars will include a visit to a working
wind farm and will involve relevant
presentations from policymakers, civil
servants and wind farm developers.

RENEWABLEUK
GLOBAL OFFSHORE WIND 2012
RenewableUKs 11TH offshore event goes
global at the ExCel centre in London
Docklands. The UK leads the world in
planned projects and installed offshore
wind capacity. Now it has a world-leading
conference and exhibition to match.
RenewableUK Global Offshore Wind 2012
will be the first event of its kind to be run
on this topic with such a wide geographical
focus. The new event is sponsored by ABB
in association with GWEC.

RENEWABLEUK
WAVE AND TIDAL 2012
CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION
The organisations 9th event for those
interested in the development of the
wave and tidal sectors huge potential,
in the UK and worldwide, takes place at
the International Convention Centre
in Edinburgh.

RENEWABLEUK
ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2011
The UK's premier renewable energy
event takes place on the 25th-27th
October in Manchester. The Energy
Secretary Chris Huhne is the keynote
speaker. Over five thousand
delegates are expected to attend
RenewableUK's 33rd annual 3-day
conference and exhibition, which covers
onshore and offshore wind, small wind
systems and wave and tidal energy. Over
80% of the exhibition space has already
been booked. More than 300 companies
will be represented, including
manufacturers, developers, contractors,
consultants, suppliers, service
companies, electricity generators,
utilities, financiers, insurance companies,
research institutes, engineers and
recruitment consultants. This year there
will be two new technology pavilions
one for small wind systems, and the
other for wave and tidal energy.
The range of side events includes social
and networking opportunities,
consultation sessions, and a careers fair.
We are grateful to our core sponsor
Siemens, and to our sponsors Vestas, RES
and The Crown Estate.

RenewableUK Offshore Wind 2011:

Udo Walkemeyer from Areva, Meg Hillier MP and
Charles Anglin, Director of Communication,
RenewableUK. Photo: Matthew Pulzer

www.renewableuk.com

133

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38

NEW DIMENSIONS FOR INLAND REGIONS

Nordexs new N117/2400 is the highest-yielding IEC 3 turbine in its class

With a turbine specifically designed for

inland locations and light wind sites, Nordex
now offers the N117/2400. This turbine
generates high yields even at low wind
speeds due to a rotor sweep of 10,715m2,
making it the most efficient IEC 3 machine in
its power class.
With its 117-metre rotor diameter, the
N117/2400 is the largest wind turbine in its
category. In developing the rotor blades,
Nordex has remained true to its tried-andtested technology: the profile and connection
system are the same as for the previous
models from this platform. In addition,
Nordex has geared the rotor dimensions
exactly to the requirements of inland
locations. Carbon fibres (CRP) ensure the
stability of those structures exposed to
particular strain.

N117/2400 in regions with lower winds,

Nordex customers are able to ensure high and
constant production of electricity.

The N117/2400 sets the highest standards in

terms of economic efficiency. Every year the
N117/2400 notches up more than 3,500 fullload hours at typical inland locations,
outstripping other products in its category by
20 per cent. It achieves a capacity factor of
up to 40 per cent, meaning that, with the

Good inland wind locations are often in near

proximity to residential areas. In order to
make use of these areas and design wind
farms ideally for the available space, a large
turbine with minimal noise emission is
required. This is why the N117/2400 does not
exceed the sound power level of 105 decibels.

For further information visit: www.N117.net

134

www.renewableuk.com

Experience is the key to building reliable

power plants: the N117/2400 is the result
of eleven years of consistent technical
development of the platform up to 2.5
megawatts. The N117/2400 rotor giant adds
yet another, even more powerful, inland
machine to the Nordex Efficiency Class. Its
design includes the knowledge gained from 26
years of engineering in the wind industry as
well as the experience of installing more than
1,300 multi-megawatt wind turbines.