Nine of the major offshore wind manufacturers in Europe have joined a programme which aims to reduce costs for these projects.
DONG Energy, EnBW, E.ON, Iberdrola, RWE, SSE, Statkraft, Statoil and Vattenfall have signed up to Carbon Trust’s scheme designed to slash the levelised cost of energy from offshore wind.
The programme aims to achieve that by improving efficiency and through technological innovation.
In the next four years, the firms will collectively invest at least £6.4 million to bring new innovations to market that will help ensure the cost of offshore wind is below £100 per MWh by 2020.
The Scottish Government has also invested £1.5 million in the scheme.
Tom Delay, CEO of the Carbon Trust said: “Over the last five years the cost of energy from offshore wind has decreased significantly, largely driven by a combination of innovation, risk reduction and increased deployment rates but we need to continue building on this success by getting the right solutions into market quickly to put offshore wind on the path to cost competitiveness by 2020.
“The Offshore Wind Accelerator has an impressive track record, providing an effective mechanism for public and private sector to work together to meet the cost reduction challenge head on. Its success lies in the sharing of the risks and rewards of innovation through industry-led collaborative research, development and deployment.”
