Friday 23 November 2018

Ofgem has selected Diamond Transmission Partners as the preferred bidder to own and operate the high voltage transmission link to the Galloper offshore wind farm for the next 20 years.

Diamond Transmission Partners, a consortium comprising Mitsubishi Corporation and HICL Infrastructure Company Limited, was selected by Ofgem through a tender process in which bidders compete to become Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTOs).

The Galloper wind farm, located 30km off the coast of Suffolk, consists of 56 six megawatt (MW) turbines and has a capacity of 353MW. It became operational in March this year and can produce enough power for over 380,700 average UK homes.

The developer of the windfarm and the link is innogy SE. The windfarm is owned by a consortium comprising innogy SE, Siemens Financial Services, Sumitomo, ESB and a consortium managed by Green Investment Group and Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets. The consortium’s initial estimated value of the transmission assets is £329.1 million. Once the final value of the assets has been agreed by Ofgem, the preferred bidder will pay this amount to the developer, once the bidder’s OFTO licence has been granted to them by Ofgem.

Since Ofgem and Government launched the OFTO regime in 2009 winning bidders have so far invested more than £3.3 billion in links and generation assets which have connected more than 5GW of offshore wind farms. Tendering ownership of these links through the regime continues to reduce the cost of connecting offshore wind. At least £700 million in savings have been achieved for consumers so far across the first three tender rounds.