Britain must accept that major parts of its offshore wind farms will be manufactured abroad, Danish giant Dong Energy has said, as new figures reveal the vast scale of subsidies it is set to receive from UK consumers. The state-backed Danish company has benefited more than any other developer from the UK’s push for offshore wind and is facing fresh calls to invest more of its multi-billion pound proceeds into a British supply chain. Figures obtained by the Telegraph show that existing UK wind farms in which Dong has stakes, combined with new projects it is currently building, are together set to receive more than £1.5bn a year in subsidies, funded by levies on energy bills. Dong is in line for a significant share of the windfall. Although blades for the new turbines will be made in the UK, Samuel Leupold, a senior Dong executive, said it made sense to source other major parts elsewhere, such as nacelles – the part of the turbine that houses the generators – from Germany, and most foundations and towers from other European countries.
Telegraph 10th Sept 2016 read more »
Denmark, Andrea Leadsom suggested, might have reason to be thankful to the UK. As the then-energy minister reminded MPs in April, the Scandinavian country is recipient of “the bill-payer subsidy for the most prolific offshore wind installer in the world”. “The UK has 50pc of the world’s offshore wind and the Danish developers have benefited enormously,” she said. The installer in question was Dong Energy. Majority-owned by the government of Denmark, the one-time oil and gas company-turned-offshore wind developer has conquered the seas around Britain in unrivalled fashion And, as Leadsom’s comments hinted, there is some unease at the spoils of this new Viking invasion. From its modest start with the 90 megawatt (MW) Barrow offshore wind farm, one of the UK’s first when it was completed in 2006, Dong has built an empire encompassing ownership or part-ownership of eight projects in UK waters. They include a 25pc stake in the 175-turbine London Array, which, at 630MW, is the biggest offshore wind farm in the world to date. In total, of the 5.1 gigawatts (GW) of turbines installed in the UK waters, Dong has interests in just over two-fifths (2.2GW) of them; its actual ownership stakes equate to 985MW. Everything it has built to date receives subsidies through the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme; analysis of Ofgem data suggests Dong’s share of the subsidies last year, on top of the wholesale electricity price, could easily have topped £250m.
Telegraph 10th Sept 2016 read more »