Ofcom Shortlists Suppliers for Wind Farm Transmissions
As the investment in green technology continues Ofcom the regulator for energy in the UK has shortlisted 6 companies to supply the lines between wind farms and the mainland.
Ofcom has put out its first tender to run transmission lines between the UK’s offshore wind farms to the mainland to carry the electricity power they generate. In total there are nine projects or tenders and Ofcom have shortlisted six companies and the winning bids will be announced in May 2010.
The contracts are to own and run the transmission links to connect up to 2,000 megawatts of renewable electricity generated by the wind farm companies and are estimated to be worth in excess of £1 billion. The shortlisted companies are as follows:
- Macquairie Capital Group
- Balfour Beatty Capital Group
- DONG Energy sales and distribution
- National Grid offshore limited
- Green Energy Transmission (AMP capital investors and Equitix Ltd)
- Transmission Capital Partners (International Public Partnerships, Transmission Capital and Amber Infrastructure Ltd)
The bidding process is run and managed by the Ofcom e-serve group which is the regulators delivery function and administers such activities as renewables obligations and the climate change levy which are part of their overall environmental programs for businesses.
It is estimated that by 2020 these renewable energy wind farms could generate up to 33 gigawatts of power so this program is part of the government’s efforts to ensure that a far greater percentage of the UK’s energy requirements come from renewable sources.
Their code name for this project is bravosolution and they have a dedicated website to manage the tendering process. The context for this project is that the government wants 15% of the UK’s energy requirements to come from renewable sources by 2020 and that renewable energy is to form a large contribution to this goal.
Most of the tendering process have been completed and passed through the Ofcom regime which starts at the pre-qualification stage where potential bidders must satisfy certain criteria even to bid for this contract work. From this Ofcom will have an initial list of bidders which they describe as their “long list of bidders” and these are then scored under the terms of “qualification to tender” process.
This is the stage where they are at now and have in effect a short list of bidders who are now request to present their ITT – invitation to tender documents based upon the tendering process. The final outcome is the preferred bidder and they are granted a license to develop the project.
Ofcom also have a list of charges they undertake to companies tendering through this process and charge £100,000 just to apply at the first stage. There are also fees for the successful bidder which are £150,000 because they are successful and £250,000 to purchase the licence grant. Granted the overall contract is £1billion so this is small change and this is probably a method to cover the administration costs for Ofcom in the entire process for selecting the preferred bidder for the transmission lines to bring renewable energy from the offshore wind farms back into the UK.
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