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‘United’ we stand at EWEA 2015
About: David Appleyard is a freelance journalist focusing on energy and technology. Feature article
‘United’ we stand at EWEA 2015 The key message to emerge from EWEA 2015 is one of industrial unity. Not an end to competition, per se, but a call among participants operating in the sector to develop coherent standards.
M
ORE THAN 8000 delegates from some 50 different nations travelled to the Danish capital of Copenhagen earlier this year to attend EWEA Offshore 2015, Europe’s principal offshore wind event. Alongside the 400-odd exhibitors, the event also hosted the launch of a new industry initiative designed to achieve the key objective for the offshore wind sector – cutting costs. Designed to spark joint and collective actions across the offshore wind value chain, three of the biggest players on the European stage officially launched the initiative – known as United Industry. This mind-set, say the industry’s leading players, is the route to cutting costs and the crux of a sustainable offshore wind sector. Giving this initiative some context, its launch coincided with the publication of a study from EY which concluded that the European offshore wind industry must cut costs by some 26% in order to reach cost-competitiveness with conventional forms of energy by 2023.
34
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
Online: renewableenergyfocus.com UK wind report Crown Estate publishes wind analysis report which shows met mast data is crucial to offshore wind development. http://ow.ly/2QGktg
By the numbers 2014 was a record-setting year for Canadian wind industry, with 1,871 MW of wind energy capacity installed in five provinces. http://ow.ly/IcKVT
Feature article
EWEA Offshore is billed as the world’s largest conference and exhibition dedicated to the sector. Image courtesy of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).
In the next five years, says the report, in order to become cost-competitive actions must include the introduction of larger turbines with lower operating costs. This will lead to as much as a 9% reduction in costs. A steady project pipeline allowing continuous production of support structures would cut up to 7% from the costs of offshore wind power and greater competition between industrial actors in several key supply chain areas would also lower costs by as much as 7%. Titled ‘Offshore Wind in Europe’, the report also concludes that greater supply chain optimization and logistical integration could potentially achieve a 3% cut in costs. The EY analysis concludes that offshore wind energy is expected to grow to 23.5 GW by 2020, tripling current installed capacity of some 8 GW. Meanwhile, industry efforts to reduce capital and operating costs mean that offshore wind will become competitive by 2023, when compared with other sources of energy. EY contends the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE) could reach €90/MWh by 2030 — as long as a continual stream of projects enters the pipeline. Indeed, EY notes that the industry has already started rolling out larger 6-8 MW turbines and while there are
immediate higher capital expenditure costs, the increased energy capture is reaching the economies of scale needed to lower the cost of energy. Simultaneously, within supply chain logistics and operation and maintenance (O&M), the industry is also working together on long-term projects to optimize processes and plan better for future developments. And so Dong Energy, MHI Vestas and Siemens Wind Power took the lead in pledging to undertake joint and individual actions across the whole of the value chain to deliver “major long-term and tangible advancements.”
Committed to a united industry First conceived in 2014 as the Seastar Offshore Industrial Alliance, the initiative is a collaboration between British, Danish, German and Dutch industries to share best practices, identify common barriers to deployment, and drive cost reduction. Working with European and national bodies and authorities, its initial aims include delivering certainty and commitment to enable the development of at least 30 GW of offshore wind connected to the Northern European grid
by 2025, and adopting a common cost reduction monitoring framework as well as developing common standards and appropriate grid development. Adam Bruce, representing the UK Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Programme Board, serves as the alliance’s chair. “For offshore wind to realise its full and significant potential, we need to continuously reduce the cost of electricity,” said Claus Hviid Christensen, vice president in DONG Energy Wind Power. “The good news is that we are indeed on the right track, and we are already seeing the industry taking important steps forward with an impressive pace. With a clear political framework for the development of offshore wind power after 2020, I am confident that we will meet our target of making offshore wind fully competitive with alternative energy technologies.” Samuel Leupold (Christensen’s colleague), DONG executive vice-president for wind, acknowledges the important contributions coming from technology development and O&M for example, but also highlights another project fundamental — location. “There is no doubt that many sites being built out in the past were not ideal in terms of wind speeds and seabed conditions, and too small in terms of economies of scale,” he explained. “In this regard, our industry has to become normal: like all other powergeneration technologies, if you build a gas-fired power plant or a hydropower dam in the wrong place, it will not be cost-competitive.” With the installation of turbines at the Borkum Riffgrund 1 Offshore Wind Farm in Germany, DONG Energy recently reached a total installed offshore wind capacity of 3 GW, with the average turbine size at the four most recent wind farms in construction by DONG Energy now reaching 5.6 MW. But, EY’s report warns: “By 2020, offshore wind will have an installed capacity of 20-plus gigawatts, and be within near completion of achieving €100/MWh. Failure to meet both of these criteria will not see the offshore wind industry advance into 2030 and beyond.” Indeed, such is the significance of this initiative in securing a sustainable,
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
35
Feature article
long-term industry that it formed the centre piece of a keynote CEO roundtable. Moderated by BBC journalist Stephen Sackur, the panel included Michael Hannibal, CEO Offshore, Siemens Wind Power, who represented turbine manufacturers; Magnus Hall, CEO of utility group Vattenfall; Rolf Normann, the CEO of logistics and installation company Fred. Olsen Ocean Ltd.; and Leo Schot, CEO of blade manufacturer LM Windpower, representing the supply chain. Hannibal explained that while a sustainable offshore industry is important for Siemens, for all its leading market position it cannot reach that goal alone. “What we can’t optimise that’s the policymakers’ thinking. Getting it united, everybody wins,” he says, noting that the key issue is the fact that regulatory regimes are not harmonised. Hannibal cites the example of an offshore machine placed off the east coast of the UK and an offshore machine placed in German waters: “In
between you have water, but you are working with different regimes, you are working with different standards, you are working with different interpretations. And a simple question is: Why is it difficult to have a united way of doing things so that we, in Europe, have a united way of doing offshore?” Hannibal argues that developing such a regime may yield dividends for a future export market, adding: “This could be the trend-setter for future markets outside of Europe also.” Plus, while a united front suggests industry-wide advocacy when working with policymakers and regulatory authorities, the alliance is keen to stress that competition remains a key part of the equation. “Nobody should think that united means less competition,” Hannibal stressed. “We [at Siemens] we want to fight for our share of the supplier volume out there. So the united stops when it comes to the competition of winning orders. But it’s kind of hollow being a significant
Working together across channels to cut the costs of offshore wind power development — that was the gist of the EWEA 2015 conference and exhibition. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
36
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
player in the industry if the industry is not surviving.” Vattenfall’s Magnus Hall also pointed to the advantages of a unified approach to the offshore wind industry: “Standards definitely drive costs down; I think we can find regulatory issues that can drive costs down if you can make things easier and everybody has the same sort of system to adapt to, definitely that will make things cheaper – you don’t have to have different lines of production if you are a supplier.” Hall added: “I think it can make a significant difference. It reduces risk in the projects, and I think therefore you can drive down the cost of developing wind farms for a company like Vattenfall.” This is a view echoed by Leo Schot. “It’s almost a no brainer, we have to reduce the costs of energy, we need to have further industrialisation, and our scale is in fact pretty low so we do not get economy of scales. “ Schot argues that the offshore wind industry needs to be more like the automotive of aerospace industries, where you see cooperation, saying: “Why do we have an Airbus – we have united the industry in Europe. Why do you not see a ‘Seabus’ that will unite the industry to become stronger and to drive the costs down together, to drive regulatory systems and to grow this industry? You will see some clusters of companies working together to drive the costs down — that’s a model that I could see.” Questioned over the business model that relied upon a fundamental openness over intellectual property, Schot identified a number of different approaches, such as risk and revenue sharing but noted: “We need to drive down costs, but how to do that exactly is something we have to figure out — that is an unpaved road. It requires a fundamental change in thinking and a lot of trust.” Asked if he trusted the other panellists, Schot noted the long-term nature of the energy business and the multi-decade lifespan of wind turbines, saying: “The word is not trust, you need to able to rely on each other.” Schot highlighted the potential for collaboration on some aspects of technology development and
Feature article
standardisation whilst retaining a core competency or business in a specialised area. This was picked up by other panellists, with Siemens’ Hannibal adding: “The future could be that you have to leave the monopole foundations and go to some deep water foundations where, in our view, they could maybe be looked at differently and that’s what we have done and all our good thinking of having fully-industrialised deep water foundations we have actually shared in the market. It’s not the turbine alone. The turbine is a big part of it, but it is also foundations and vessels and everything else.”
Planning for offshore development Aside from the headline-grabbing campaign, the 2015 conference also offered in-depth sessions on a range of topics and across three simultaneous tracks, with a focus on cost reduction. Among the themes explored, the conference aimed to address questions such as: where in the supply chain and operations & maintenance can cost reductions be found; how can better resource assessment make offshore wind farm development cheaper; and how can the industry improve spatial planning and reduce environmental impacts? So, for example, Nick Baldock, heading the Offshore Wind Project Development Team at DNV GL, gave a presentation considering the development of planning tools over the past decade and how those may be used to optimise decision-making. In particular, Baldock argues that larger project sites demonstrate the value of such tools, due to the number and complexity of interfaces and variables, some of which are controllable by utilities and contractors and some that are entirely the preserve of the weather. Noting that early planning models considered little more than weather-related impacts he said: “Obviously, as the industry has matured and projects have become more complex, we’ve been looking at focusing on other delays, such as vessel interaction limitations. It turns out that bringing a more expensive, more capable vessel turns out to be the preferred approach from a cost of energy
perspective, so we can use installation models to understand site specific slight delays and understand what the optimal configuration should be.” Considering O&M modelling, Baldock again noted the evolution from a focus on wind turbine availability only to nowadays, including balance of plant availability and its associated economic impact: “We are able to statistically model failures within the electrical transmission system, and we are starting to consider the effects of condition monitoring systems. “Tools are generally widely used to assist in decision making during projects through the project development life cycle. They’re being used more today with the increase size and complexity, especially with the Round 3 projects. The quality and capability are improving, but the industry will general benefit from a consistency and application, and that could be driven through standardisation or through standards that are task-specific.”
A path to low-cost technology Turbine technology and an assessment of which technologies will bring be able to bring costs down by 2020 was another key theme to emerge from Copenhagen. For example, Bernard Bulder, a researcher at ECN in The Netherlands, explored the potential cost reduction impact resulting from the increasing capacity of wind turbines. Among his observations: “Where we assume that there is an up-scale from 4 MW to 8 MW, next to that we see there is a trend going to a lower power density, meaning that you increase the rotor area more than you increase the rated power of the turbine. We also see that there is a trend going down to maybe even 300 watts per square metre. If we then [factor] that into the cost model, we see that if you reduce the rotor power density you can increase the net capacity factor for the wind farm from 45% in 2010 to maybe even 55% in the future. “Upscaling from 4 MW to 8 MW means that you increase the rotor diameter from 160 to more than 185 metres. Our model shows that this could {result in a] cost reduction of approximately 15%.” However, it is clear that margins in
the offshore wind sector are narrowing with the announcement in Copenhagen that Gamesa and Areva have finalised their merger related to offshore wind activities. The new venture, Adwen, now offers two 5 MW platforms, the AD 5-135 and AD 5-132. The AD 5-135, formerly the M5000-135, is Areva’s technology, while the AD 5-132, was developed by Gamesa and formerly called G132-5.0 MW. Adwen says it will continue to manufacture both these turbines in its existing plants in Germany, and with a 2.8 GW project pipeline the company has an objective of garnering a market share of close to 20% in Europe by 2020. Adwen is also currently developing an 8 MW machine, initiated by Areva and further optimized thanks to Gamesa’s technological expertise. It is expected to begin serial production in 2018 with a 1 GW project pipeline so far. Gamesa recently announced that it had assembled its prototype G132-5.0 MW machine, which will be located at the R&D facility in Alaiz near Navarre in Spain, with a view to obtaining type certification by the end of 2015. With technical developments all but assured, giving the developer perspective, Achim Berge Olsen, managing director of WPD Offshore, reinforced the importance of a stable policy framework in driving forward offshore wind development. “I think there should be a framework where you have security about your off take earlier,” he told Renewable Energy Focus magazine, “but times have changed and the tender system is something which will come, so we need to adapt to that. But then we need to find a solution to the projects which have been developed for so many years and the many millions that have been spent.” And instead of a market model which offers stability for perhaps one to three years, Olsen calls for a longer-term perspective: “The next model would have been nice if we have a stable framework for five, six or seven or eight years,” he stated. This is perhaps one key area of development that a united industry will be able to achieve in a world focused on competitive energy.
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
37
‘United’ we stand at EWEA 2015 The key message to emerge from EWEA 2015 is one of industrial unity. Not an end to competition, per se, but a call among participants operating in the sector to develop coherent standards.
M
ORE THAN 8000 delegates from some 50 different nations travelled to the Danish capital of Copenhagen earlier this year to attend EWEA Offshore 2015, Europe’s principal offshore wind event. Alongside the 400-odd exhibitors, the event also hosted the launch of a new industry initiative designed to achieve the key objective for the offshore wind sector – cutting costs. Designed to spark joint and collective actions across the offshore wind value chain, three of the biggest players on the European stage officially launched the initiative – known as United Industry. This mind-set, say the industry’s leading players, is the route to cutting costs and the crux of a sustainable offshore wind sector. Giving this initiative some context, its launch coincided with the publication of a study from EY which concluded that the European offshore wind industry must cut costs by some 26% in order to reach cost-competitiveness with conventional forms of energy by 2023.
34
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
Online: renewableenergyfocus.com UK wind report Crown Estate publishes wind analysis report which shows met mast data is crucial to offshore wind development. http://ow.ly/2QGktg
By the numbers 2014 was a record-setting year for Canadian wind industry, with 1,871 MW of wind energy capacity installed in five provinces. http://ow.ly/IcKVT
Feature article
EWEA Offshore is billed as the world’s largest conference and exhibition dedicated to the sector. Image courtesy of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).
In the next five years, says the report, in order to become cost-competitive actions must include the introduction of larger turbines with lower operating costs. This will lead to as much as a 9% reduction in costs. A steady project pipeline allowing continuous production of support structures would cut up to 7% from the costs of offshore wind power and greater competition between industrial actors in several key supply chain areas would also lower costs by as much as 7%. Titled ‘Offshore Wind in Europe’, the report also concludes that greater supply chain optimization and logistical integration could potentially achieve a 3% cut in costs. The EY analysis concludes that offshore wind energy is expected to grow to 23.5 GW by 2020, tripling current installed capacity of some 8 GW. Meanwhile, industry efforts to reduce capital and operating costs mean that offshore wind will become competitive by 2023, when compared with other sources of energy. EY contends the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE) could reach €90/MWh by 2030 — as long as a continual stream of projects enters the pipeline. Indeed, EY notes that the industry has already started rolling out larger 6-8 MW turbines and while there are
immediate higher capital expenditure costs, the increased energy capture is reaching the economies of scale needed to lower the cost of energy. Simultaneously, within supply chain logistics and operation and maintenance (O&M), the industry is also working together on long-term projects to optimize processes and plan better for future developments. And so Dong Energy, MHI Vestas and Siemens Wind Power took the lead in pledging to undertake joint and individual actions across the whole of the value chain to deliver “major long-term and tangible advancements.”
Committed to a united industry First conceived in 2014 as the Seastar Offshore Industrial Alliance, the initiative is a collaboration between British, Danish, German and Dutch industries to share best practices, identify common barriers to deployment, and drive cost reduction. Working with European and national bodies and authorities, its initial aims include delivering certainty and commitment to enable the development of at least 30 GW of offshore wind connected to the Northern European grid
by 2025, and adopting a common cost reduction monitoring framework as well as developing common standards and appropriate grid development. Adam Bruce, representing the UK Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Programme Board, serves as the alliance’s chair. “For offshore wind to realise its full and significant potential, we need to continuously reduce the cost of electricity,” said Claus Hviid Christensen, vice president in DONG Energy Wind Power. “The good news is that we are indeed on the right track, and we are already seeing the industry taking important steps forward with an impressive pace. With a clear political framework for the development of offshore wind power after 2020, I am confident that we will meet our target of making offshore wind fully competitive with alternative energy technologies.” Samuel Leupold (Christensen’s colleague), DONG executive vice-president for wind, acknowledges the important contributions coming from technology development and O&M for example, but also highlights another project fundamental — location. “There is no doubt that many sites being built out in the past were not ideal in terms of wind speeds and seabed conditions, and too small in terms of economies of scale,” he explained. “In this regard, our industry has to become normal: like all other powergeneration technologies, if you build a gas-fired power plant or a hydropower dam in the wrong place, it will not be cost-competitive.” With the installation of turbines at the Borkum Riffgrund 1 Offshore Wind Farm in Germany, DONG Energy recently reached a total installed offshore wind capacity of 3 GW, with the average turbine size at the four most recent wind farms in construction by DONG Energy now reaching 5.6 MW. But, EY’s report warns: “By 2020, offshore wind will have an installed capacity of 20-plus gigawatts, and be within near completion of achieving €100/MWh. Failure to meet both of these criteria will not see the offshore wind industry advance into 2030 and beyond.” Indeed, such is the significance of this initiative in securing a sustainable,
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
35
Feature article
long-term industry that it formed the centre piece of a keynote CEO roundtable. Moderated by BBC journalist Stephen Sackur, the panel included Michael Hannibal, CEO Offshore, Siemens Wind Power, who represented turbine manufacturers; Magnus Hall, CEO of utility group Vattenfall; Rolf Normann, the CEO of logistics and installation company Fred. Olsen Ocean Ltd.; and Leo Schot, CEO of blade manufacturer LM Windpower, representing the supply chain. Hannibal explained that while a sustainable offshore industry is important for Siemens, for all its leading market position it cannot reach that goal alone. “What we can’t optimise that’s the policymakers’ thinking. Getting it united, everybody wins,” he says, noting that the key issue is the fact that regulatory regimes are not harmonised. Hannibal cites the example of an offshore machine placed off the east coast of the UK and an offshore machine placed in German waters: “In
between you have water, but you are working with different regimes, you are working with different standards, you are working with different interpretations. And a simple question is: Why is it difficult to have a united way of doing things so that we, in Europe, have a united way of doing offshore?” Hannibal argues that developing such a regime may yield dividends for a future export market, adding: “This could be the trend-setter for future markets outside of Europe also.” Plus, while a united front suggests industry-wide advocacy when working with policymakers and regulatory authorities, the alliance is keen to stress that competition remains a key part of the equation. “Nobody should think that united means less competition,” Hannibal stressed. “We [at Siemens] we want to fight for our share of the supplier volume out there. So the united stops when it comes to the competition of winning orders. But it’s kind of hollow being a significant
Working together across channels to cut the costs of offshore wind power development — that was the gist of the EWEA 2015 conference and exhibition. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
36
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
player in the industry if the industry is not surviving.” Vattenfall’s Magnus Hall also pointed to the advantages of a unified approach to the offshore wind industry: “Standards definitely drive costs down; I think we can find regulatory issues that can drive costs down if you can make things easier and everybody has the same sort of system to adapt to, definitely that will make things cheaper – you don’t have to have different lines of production if you are a supplier.” Hall added: “I think it can make a significant difference. It reduces risk in the projects, and I think therefore you can drive down the cost of developing wind farms for a company like Vattenfall.” This is a view echoed by Leo Schot. “It’s almost a no brainer, we have to reduce the costs of energy, we need to have further industrialisation, and our scale is in fact pretty low so we do not get economy of scales. “ Schot argues that the offshore wind industry needs to be more like the automotive of aerospace industries, where you see cooperation, saying: “Why do we have an Airbus – we have united the industry in Europe. Why do you not see a ‘Seabus’ that will unite the industry to become stronger and to drive the costs down together, to drive regulatory systems and to grow this industry? You will see some clusters of companies working together to drive the costs down — that’s a model that I could see.” Questioned over the business model that relied upon a fundamental openness over intellectual property, Schot identified a number of different approaches, such as risk and revenue sharing but noted: “We need to drive down costs, but how to do that exactly is something we have to figure out — that is an unpaved road. It requires a fundamental change in thinking and a lot of trust.” Asked if he trusted the other panellists, Schot noted the long-term nature of the energy business and the multi-decade lifespan of wind turbines, saying: “The word is not trust, you need to able to rely on each other.” Schot highlighted the potential for collaboration on some aspects of technology development and
Feature article
standardisation whilst retaining a core competency or business in a specialised area. This was picked up by other panellists, with Siemens’ Hannibal adding: “The future could be that you have to leave the monopole foundations and go to some deep water foundations where, in our view, they could maybe be looked at differently and that’s what we have done and all our good thinking of having fully-industrialised deep water foundations we have actually shared in the market. It’s not the turbine alone. The turbine is a big part of it, but it is also foundations and vessels and everything else.”
Planning for offshore development Aside from the headline-grabbing campaign, the 2015 conference also offered in-depth sessions on a range of topics and across three simultaneous tracks, with a focus on cost reduction. Among the themes explored, the conference aimed to address questions such as: where in the supply chain and operations & maintenance can cost reductions be found; how can better resource assessment make offshore wind farm development cheaper; and how can the industry improve spatial planning and reduce environmental impacts? So, for example, Nick Baldock, heading the Offshore Wind Project Development Team at DNV GL, gave a presentation considering the development of planning tools over the past decade and how those may be used to optimise decision-making. In particular, Baldock argues that larger project sites demonstrate the value of such tools, due to the number and complexity of interfaces and variables, some of which are controllable by utilities and contractors and some that are entirely the preserve of the weather. Noting that early planning models considered little more than weather-related impacts he said: “Obviously, as the industry has matured and projects have become more complex, we’ve been looking at focusing on other delays, such as vessel interaction limitations. It turns out that bringing a more expensive, more capable vessel turns out to be the preferred approach from a cost of energy
perspective, so we can use installation models to understand site specific slight delays and understand what the optimal configuration should be.” Considering O&M modelling, Baldock again noted the evolution from a focus on wind turbine availability only to nowadays, including balance of plant availability and its associated economic impact: “We are able to statistically model failures within the electrical transmission system, and we are starting to consider the effects of condition monitoring systems. “Tools are generally widely used to assist in decision making during projects through the project development life cycle. They’re being used more today with the increase size and complexity, especially with the Round 3 projects. The quality and capability are improving, but the industry will general benefit from a consistency and application, and that could be driven through standardisation or through standards that are task-specific.”
A path to low-cost technology Turbine technology and an assessment of which technologies will bring be able to bring costs down by 2020 was another key theme to emerge from Copenhagen. For example, Bernard Bulder, a researcher at ECN in The Netherlands, explored the potential cost reduction impact resulting from the increasing capacity of wind turbines. Among his observations: “Where we assume that there is an up-scale from 4 MW to 8 MW, next to that we see there is a trend going to a lower power density, meaning that you increase the rotor area more than you increase the rated power of the turbine. We also see that there is a trend going down to maybe even 300 watts per square metre. If we then [factor] that into the cost model, we see that if you reduce the rotor power density you can increase the net capacity factor for the wind farm from 45% in 2010 to maybe even 55% in the future. “Upscaling from 4 MW to 8 MW means that you increase the rotor diameter from 160 to more than 185 metres. Our model shows that this could {result in a] cost reduction of approximately 15%.” However, it is clear that margins in
the offshore wind sector are narrowing with the announcement in Copenhagen that Gamesa and Areva have finalised their merger related to offshore wind activities. The new venture, Adwen, now offers two 5 MW platforms, the AD 5-135 and AD 5-132. The AD 5-135, formerly the M5000-135, is Areva’s technology, while the AD 5-132, was developed by Gamesa and formerly called G132-5.0 MW. Adwen says it will continue to manufacture both these turbines in its existing plants in Germany, and with a 2.8 GW project pipeline the company has an objective of garnering a market share of close to 20% in Europe by 2020. Adwen is also currently developing an 8 MW machine, initiated by Areva and further optimized thanks to Gamesa’s technological expertise. It is expected to begin serial production in 2018 with a 1 GW project pipeline so far. Gamesa recently announced that it had assembled its prototype G132-5.0 MW machine, which will be located at the R&D facility in Alaiz near Navarre in Spain, with a view to obtaining type certification by the end of 2015. With technical developments all but assured, giving the developer perspective, Achim Berge Olsen, managing director of WPD Offshore, reinforced the importance of a stable policy framework in driving forward offshore wind development. “I think there should be a framework where you have security about your off take earlier,” he told Renewable Energy Focus magazine, “but times have changed and the tender system is something which will come, so we need to adapt to that. But then we need to find a solution to the projects which have been developed for so many years and the many millions that have been spent.” And instead of a market model which offers stability for perhaps one to three years, Olsen calls for a longer-term perspective: “The next model would have been nice if we have a stable framework for five, six or seven or eight years,” he stated. This is perhaps one key area of development that a united industry will be able to achieve in a world focused on competitive energy.
May/June 2015 | Renewable Energy Focus
37