The CEO of British Gas owned company Centrica has warned that the delivery of a 3rd round of UK offshore wind farms is “questionable”.
Centrica CEO Sam Laidlaw told Timesonline today that the company has doubts as to whether the proposed 32 Gigawatts of offshore wind farms around UK shores would ever go ahead. Despite benefiting from cross party support, the Round 3 offshore wind energy programme is set to be challenged by spiralling costs.
Laidlaw said that the economics of building wind farms 200km offshore remained dubious and that “greater competition was needed between wind turbine suppliers” According to Laidlaw more Asian companies need to start manufacturing wind turbines to encourage price reductions.
Meanwhile the consortium developing the world’s largest offshore wind farm ‘London Array‘ under the 2nd round of UK offshore wind farms has awarded contracts to MPI and A2SEA. The contracts are to supply marine crew and vessels for the installation of foundations and turbines for the first phase of what will potentially be the world’s first 1GW offshore wind farm.
Richard Rigg, Project Director for London Array said “These are the final major construction contracts to be signed for London Array, which has now moved as a project from the development phase into full construction”.
“These vessels are critical to the successful installation of the wind turbines and their foundations and we are delighted to be working with such experienced contractors”.
