In this week the offshore wind power giant, Ørsted, announced they will participate in the bid in the Dutch offshore wind tender for South Holland Coast 3 &4.
“Using offshore wind to produce green hydrogen from electrolysis is an enabler to decarbonize other sectors such as heavy industries and transport,” Henrik Poulsen, CEO and President of Ørsted, said.
We believe this is great news and shows how willing the offshore wind farm developers are to find new ways to support the zero bid strategies with innovation. Only by thinking in an innovative way you win a zero subsidy bid for a wind farm.
We have used the YOUWINd model to look further into the South Holland Cost 3+4 and see how the LCOE and the overall CAPEX has evolved over the last decade or so. We anticipate that this wind farm will use 12-15MW wind turbines which would mean that the wind farm of 700MW will cost around 1,1bn EUR. The same wind farm with 3,6-4MW wind turbines 10 years ago would have cost more than double.
The LCOE will come down to 66 EUR/MWh from 85,5 EUR/MWh. If the Market prices remain same or even higher there is still business in the zero bids, and according to the YOUWINd model then well above 6% IRR.
(Source: www.gov.uk)
Incredible development in cost reduction over the years has opened doors for many other developers and now the cost has reached to a point zero bids are considered normal. So normal an innovative thinking is necessary to get permission to build. Looking forward to seeing what the competitor, Vattenfall, will announce but they won the last bid in the Netherlands.
Edward Ridgway has joined the YOUWINd model team as a Partner. Edward brings in substantial experience from engineering project management for the energy industry. Edward has over the last years worked in optimising the wind turbine package within development projects heading towards the bidding stage. For example Borssele 1 and 2, Changhua 1 and 2 (900MW recently allocated), and other international projects for industry leader Ørsted (previously DONG Energy). Edward is currently working as a consultant for the main players in offshore wind energy. Before that he spent four years working in Siemens offshore wind, firstly as Technical Project Manager then Technical Sales Manager, leading sales bids for large offshore wind farms worth upwards of 500 mEUR. He also worked in wave energy as a project manager, and senior engineer installing the world’s first offshore wave energy farm in Portugal, and working with another start-up company to obtain investment and funding for a new type of wave energy device. We are thrilled to continue working with Edward in development projects in offshore wind all over the world.
