Saturday, 27 November 2010

Offshore Wind....again

Snowbound, so a bit more research ...

Appears ScottishRenewables, which turns out is an offshore wind industry trade association, commisioned a report to see what it ( and it's trade members ) needed to do to meet the maximum target of 10.6GW of generation by 2020.  Unsurprisingly, the report is a bit biased, as any trade report will be.  It's now on the Scottish Government website as a 'Route Map'.  The link is here.  In it, they talk about an extra £7.1bn of income being generated, along with 28,377 jobs.  One has to wonder at such exact figures ...  especially as they 'lost' 100 jobs in the 'Conclusion', but that would just be a typo ...

There is a lot of talk about benefit to Scotland in producing all this energy.  It's interesting to note the major players ...

  • Scottish Power Renewables (Iberdrola, Spain)
  • E.ON Climate & Renewables (Germany)
  • Dong Energy (Denmark)
  • EDPR (Portugal)
  • Fluor ( USA)
  • Fred Olsen Renewables (Norway)
  • RWE nPower (Germany)
  • Mainstream Renewable Power (Ireland)
  • Vattenfall (Sweden)

Timetable as below :-
 
Project Stage Associated Timeline


Pre-application                                      2010 onwards
Application                                            2010 onwards
Environmental Impact Assessment         2010 - 2012
Decision Making to Determination        
Planning                                                2012 - 2013
Procurement                                         2013 - 2017
Construction                                         2014 - 2017 (Installation rate peaking in 2016-17)
Commissioning                                     2015 - 2018

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not against all this per se, but trying to make sense of all the figures and political spin is an issue.  And one has to wonder as to the 'consultation process'.  There seems to be a big drive from industry, with profits at the forefront of their mind.  They are already looking to 'cut costs by 30%'.....

One further thought to leave with.  It appears that if oil and gas companies wish to develop in an offshore wind farm area, then they have to forego the lease.

"If a company was forced to abandon a site, it could have to write off millions in development costs and future revenues. In the UK, an estimated 3.6bn has already been invested in developing offshore wind energy and projects worth another 137bn are in the pipeline"

And it'snow stopped snowing ....  :-(

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