A memorandum of understanding was signed by ten ministers from countries bordering the north sea. The memorandum is an agreement to deliver an offshore electricity grid facilitating the interconnection of offshore energy installations such as wind farms with European countries separated by the north sea and Norway.

The ministers have agreed to start working on regulatory and technical matters with an objective of sourcing electricity from a wider European geographical pool of generators. This is expected by the ministers to both increase use of renewable electricity and reduce the cost to the consumer.

Dr Gordon Edge, Renewable UK’s Director of policy said:
“Large scale interconnection with our European neighbours is vital if we are to connect up our massive offshore wind potential and integrate it into European Markets. Today’s agreement is a vital first step forward in agreeing the rules of the game without which investment cannot happen.”

The Guardian’s Terry Macalister reported yesterday that PM Gordon Brown wants Siemens to open a factory in the UK as soon as possible. The move would provide a renewable energy manufacturing base and green collar jobs. The goverment is desperate to secure economic benefits from its huge potential wind energy market.

According to the Guardian, the prime minister will meet CEO of Siemens, Peter Löscher to provide some certainty and comfort on the delivery of a large scale offshore wind energy market. This lack of confidence in wind energy market growth was what led to the Vestas decision to abandon the UK.

A Siemens offshore wind representative said that the company will be closely watching what comes out of the Crown Estate’s Round 3 offshore wind farm license announcements which are imminent.

“We are looking at two locations [for factories] in the UK, one in Denmark and one in Germany. Great Britain has the advantage of Round 3, which could result in a huge market” reported the Guardian.

The north east and the east of England have been mooted as potential factory locations. These regions are closest to where the majority of Round 3 offshore wind farm search areas are located.

Grants are also being handed out to companies both by the UK government and the European Commission. Last week, the UK government gave Siemens over £1m for the development of an offshore wind power “converter”.

This week, the European Commission announced a budget of €53bn to fund research and new product development from 2007-2013. The cash is expected to deliver new breakthrough technology, new product development programmes and innovation capability for supply chains.

Some areas in the wind energy sector currently available for funding include the development of very large off-shore wind turbines, improving technology reliability, improving the effectiveness of remote maintenance, and the delivery of stable power into the grid.

An Indicative EU budget per project of €5M has been set with a deadline for proposals of 15th of October 2009.

Other related grants being offered are for energy storage systems which include technology improving the integration of variable renewable electricity energy sources such as wind, wave power and photovoltaic’s. Large-scale demonstration of smart electricity distribution networks with distributed generation is also being incentivised.

The 2.3 Megawatt turbine has 100 metres of ballast below the water to support the massive structure. It is expected to generate enough green electricity for the equivalent of 1600 UK homes every year.

The project costing US $16m is a test case. The video below explains the project and interviews a StatoilHydro representative.

Ireland has set itself a tough target of 40% of electricity generation from renewable energy by 2020. EirGrid’s Grid 25 document, published last year provides a detailed strategy for developing the grid to facilitate the 40% target. Eirgrid says it is “currently on target to meet the challenging 40% target for 2020”

“During 2008, the level of 1,000 MW of wind energy was exceeded and this will increase significantly under the current connection processes.”

Despite the positive noises – 3000 megawatts (MW) of consented and proposed offshore wind energy projects cannot be built because there are no power lines with capacity to accommodate the green electricity. Over 1600 MW of projects already have consent including Fred Olsen/ Treasury Holdings 1100 MW Colding wind farm and Airtricity’s 520 MW east coast Arklow project. The projects are also relying on a government introduced ‘feed in tariff’ which guarantees a fixed price for the electricity to make offshore wind energy attractive to investors.

The domestic grid infrastructure required for Irish offshore wind energy projects is being progressed separately from the new strategic grid cable linking Ireland with Wales and the rest of the UK. The east – west, Ireland- Wales cable is reportedly also struggling with Norwegian offshore company Imera unable to source finance for the project. In April, Imera parent company – Oceanteam announced it was abandoning all project work in the offshore renewables industry after write-downs on offshore wind energy projects including Rhyl Flats, Gunfleet Sands and Alpha Ventus.