Offshore wind gets £7.9m boost

Major energy companies, the Scottish government and the Carbon Trust will invest £7.9 million to slash the cost of offshore wind.

The collaboration to bring new technology innovations to market will be through the Offshore Wind Accelarator (OWA) programme and aims to reduce the cost to below £100 per MWh by 2020.

Europe’s largest offshore wind developers including Dong Energy, Eon, Iberdrola, RWE and SSE have signed up to the initiative and will collectively invest at least £6.4 million over the next four years. The Scottish government has committed £1.5 million of support for the first year.

Scottish government minister for business, innovation and energy Paul Wheelhouse said: “The OWA is a collaborative programme run by the Carbon Trust, which aims to reduce the cost of offshore wind through technological innovation.

“Previous Scottish government support for the OWA has helped develop new ideas in key areas of importance to companies operating in Scottish waters and I have no doubt this new funding will help firms to continue this important work.”

The collaboration follows increasing calls for support for renewables and policy stability to ensure the technologies still attract investment. Last month, Renewable UK chief executive Hugh McNeal also urged the industry to back onshore wind at a time of economic uncertainty.

The Carbon Trust chief executive officer Tom Delay said: “Over the last five years the cost of energy from offshore wind has decreased significantly, largely driven by a combination of innovation, risk reduction and increased deployment rates. But we need to continue building on this success by getting the right solutions into market quickly to put offshore wind on the path to cost competitiveness by 2020.”

Earlier this year a report by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult revealed that the cost of energy from offshore wind remained on track to deliver the government’s cost reduction target of £100/MWh by 2020.