Ofgem appoints preferred bidder for West of Duddon Sands offshore transmission assets
Press release
Publication date
Industry sector
Offshore Transmission Network
Today Ofgem has appointed Blue Transmission as the preferred bidder to own and operate the offshore transmission links to the West of Duddon Sands windfarm.
Blue Transmission, a consortium comprising Macquarie Capital Group Limited, 3i BIFL Investments Limited and Frontier Power Limited, was selected by Ofgem through a competitive process in which bidders compete to become offshore transmission owners (OFTOs). This means they will own and operate the cable and other transmission equipment.
The West of Duddon Sands Offshore Wind Farm, located in the East Irish Sea, comprises 108 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 389MW. The estimated value of the transmission assets is £296m.
The West of Duddon Sands transmission assets were tendered under the second transitional tender round of the OFTO regime. Since the regime was set up by Ofgem and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in 2009 it has attracted £1.4 billion of investment and led to significant savings for consumers. A further £1.5 billion of transmission assets are currently in the tender process, with billions more in the pipeline.
Blue Transmission will own and operate the West Duddon Sands windfarm’s transmission system for the next 20 years.
Notes to Editor
1. Details of the Tender Round 2b project - West of Duddon Sands:
2. There are four projects in Offshore Transmission Tender Round 2. The London Array project OFTO was appointed in September 2013. Lincs, Gwynt y Môr and now West of Duddon Sands have all had a preferred bidder appointed. Press statements on the other projects are available here:
3. The offshore regulatory regime was developed by DECC and Ofgem and was launched in 2009. The regime, now fully commenced, is for licensing offshore electricity transmission and uses competitive tendering to ensure that the cable connections are delivered on time and at a reasonable cost. It is the first time that Ofgem has used competitive tendering in this way.
The regime is flexible, allowing Ofgem to run tenders for projects where:
- Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTOs), design, build, operate and maintain the transmission assets; or
- Generators build the transmission assets and then transfer them to OFTOs at construction completion.
4. About Ofgem
Ofgem is the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets, which supports the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, the regulator of the gas and electricity industries in Great Britain. The Authority's functions are set out mainly in the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989, the Competition Act 1998 and the Utilities Act 2000. In this note, the functions of the Authority under all the relevant Acts are, for simplicity, described as the functions of Ofgem.
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