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Ofgem has awarded the licence to own and operate West of Duddon Sands offshore windfarm’s £269 million transmission assets to WoDS Transmission, bringing the second round of Ofgem’s offshore transmission regime to a close.
WoDS Transmission is owned by Macquarie Corporate Holdings Pty and 3i Infrastructure. It will own and operate the link for the next 20 years.
WoDS offshore wind farm, located in the East Irish Sea 14 km off the Cumbrian coast, comprises 108 turbines with an installed capacity of 389MW.
This is the fourth and final project to reach financial close in the second tender round of the project. The second round has delivered £1.4 billion of transmission assets, connecting 1.9GW of offshore wind.
Today’s decision brings the total new transmission investment delivered by the Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTO) regime to date to over £2.5 billion. It also brings the number of OFTOs to 13.
The OFTO regime was launched by Ofgem in 2009 and uses competitive tendering for licensing offshore electricity systems.
Ofgem chief executive Dermot Nolan said: “The regulatory frameworks devised by Ofgem are key to attracting the new investment needed to extend grid networks to connect renewable energy projects, and to enable planned interconnectors with European partners to be built. This model is helping drive down costs for consumers.”
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