UK offshore wind developers named

The Crown Estate, which 'owns' the seabed around the UK, has named developers for the latest round of offshore wind power development. The nine development zones and successful bidders are:
Moray Firth Zone, Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd which is 75% owned by EDP Renovaveis and 25% owned by SeaEnergy Renewables – 1.3 GW
Firth of Forth Zone, SeaGreen Wind Energy Ltd equally owned by SSE Renewables and Fluor – 3.5 GW
Dogger Bank Zone, the Forewind Consortium equally owned by each of SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft – 9 GW
Hornsea Zone, Siemens Project Ventures and Mainstream Renewable Power, a consortium equally owned by Mainstream Renewable Power and Siemens Project Ventures and involving Hochtief Construction – 4 GW
Norfolk Bank Zone, East Anglia Offshore Wind Ltd equally owned by Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft – 7.2 GW
Hastings Zone, Eon Climate and Renewables UK – 0.6 GW
West of Isle of Wight Zone, Eneco New Energy – 0.9 GW
Bristol Channel Zone, RWE Npower Renewables, the UK subsidiary of RWE Innogy – 1.5 GW
Irish Sea Zone, Centrica Renewable Energy and involving RES Group – 4.2 GW
Full details here.

This is the third round of the Crown Estate's rolling programme of developing its offshore wind potential. With 32GW of potential capacity, these developments could supply a quarter of the UK's total electricity demand by 2020. Currently, the UK has just 700MW of offshore turbines installed, with c1.2GW under construction and 3.5GW in planning.

The total working capacity that might emerge from today's appointments is far from certain, though - the bulk of developments will depend on deepwater installations at an unprecedented scale. But at the least, it presents a huge market for an array of technologies required to build, install and maintain the turbines and supporting infrastructure. The Crown Estate will be hosting a series of supply chain events across the UK over the next few months.

In related grid news, the Beauly Denny power line upgrade was finally approved this week. It's generally reckoned as necessary infrastructure to unlock offshore wind in the North Sea, although the chosen pylon route isn't universally popular.