Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 10TH - 16TH JANUARY 2020 | 21 Finance & Investment Investment fund Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) has agreed to purchase the Windy Rig and Twentyshilling onshore wind projects in Scotland from the Norwegian state-owned gen- eration company Statkra• for £104 million. Statkra• will retain responsi- bility for building and operating the wind farms in Dumfries and Galloway. The acquisitions will ELECTRICITY Greencoat agrees £104 million deal for two Scottish wind projects be completed once they are up and running. Construction work is due to begin shortly. The 43.2MW Windy Rig project is expected to be fully operational by the second quarter of 2021 and the 37.8MW Twentyshilling project by the following quarter. UKW chairman Tim Ingram said: "This transaction follows, and is very similar to, our recently announced Glen Kyllachy acqui- sition from Innogy, with acquisi- tion completion occurring upon the successful commissioning of the wind farms. "We are delighted to partner with Statkra• on this transaction, demonstrating that UKW is the continuing partner of choice for utilities, who are well placed to retain and manage the risks associated RWE to pay £105m for King's Lynn gas plant Facility reopened in November with an upgraded gas turbine that helped raise its output to 382MW RWE has agreed to buy the newly refurbished King's Lynn combined-cycle gas turbine plant from Centrica for £105 million. The facility was reopened by Centrica in November a•er being mothballed in 2012 due to its low efficiency at a time of rising gas prices. As part of its overhaul, the power station was upgraded with a new gas turbine that helped raise its maximum power output to 382MW and its thermal efficiency to 57 per cent. "The acquisition of King's Lynn power station strengthens our position as one of the largest operators of gas-fired power plants in Europe," said Roger Miesen, chief executive of RWE Generation. "As a key enabler of security of supply, gas plays a key role in the transformation to a low-carbon energy system," he added. Tom Glover, RWE country chair for the UK, said: "King's Lynn, as a highly flexible and efficient combined-cycle power plant, fits perfectly with our exist- ing portfolio of gas and renewable power generation." The transaction, which is expected to be completed within the first quarter of 2020, will bring the total capacity of RWE's gas generation portfolio in the UK to 7.2GW. The plant will be supported by a 15-year capacity market contract, which is due to start in October 2020. • SSE has announced that Ferrybridge Multifuel 2 – a 70MW energy-from-waste plant in Yorkshire – has entered commercial operation. The £325 million project was developed as a 50:50 joint venture with Wheela- brator Technologies. The facility will generate enough power to meet the needs of 180,000 homes, while each year consuming up to 675,000 tonnes of waste-derived fuel that would otherwise be sent to landfill. TG GAS NGN plans £1.25bn budget for RIIO2 Northern Gas Networks (NGN) has published its dra• business plan for the RIIO2 price controls, as part of which the gas distribu- tion network has proposed to spend approximately £1.25 bil- lion over the five-year settlement period beginning in 2021. This equates to an average yearly spend of £249.9 million, compared with £238.3 million over the first six years of the current settlement period. The rise would mainly be the result of increased expenditure on its iron mains replacement programme, which would swell from £96.5 million to £106 million per year. Capital expenditure in other areas would drop from £57 mil- lion annually to £54.8 million. NGN said network invest- ment is expected to fall, partly because it has already tackled many of its poorest-performing assets, but also because its analysis has suggested it will be more cost-effective to maintain rather than replace some of the others. It also expects non- network investment to decrease. However, this strategy of extending the lives of some assets would also contribute to an increase in an operational expenditure from £84.8 million to £89 million per year. So too would the completion of its gas holder demolition programme, although both would be partially offset by a reduction in leakages. In total, NGN has proposed around £804 million of capital expenditure and £445 million of operational expenditure over the full five years. Despite the increase in spending, the yearly revenues it received would fall by £34 mil- lion as a result of Ofgem's pro- posed reduction in the allowed cost of equity – the baseline profit margin for shareholders. Its average contribution towards annual household bills would drop from £139 to £127. ENERGY Robin Hood finance director and chief executive suspended Robin Hood Energy has launched an internal investiga- tion and suspended its chief executive Gail Scholes and finance director Robert Bain. Both are also no longer directors of the company, which is owned by Nottingham City Council. The company has confirmed that three new senior executives have since been appointed, with former Orsted managing director Jeff Whittingham taking on the role of interim chief executive. Mike Thomas, who was finance director at Eon between 2007 and 2011, becomes interim finance director, while former Co-op Energy chief executive David Bird has become a board adviser. Robin Hood Energy refused to comment further on the nature of the suspensions. King's Lynn: "highly flexible and efficient" with wind farm construction." The wind farms are being built without any government subsidies. They were originally developed by Element Energy, before being sold to Statkra• in September 2018. • In other investment news, Fulcrum has agreed a condi- tional deal to sell its domestic gas connection assets to ES Pipelines for £33 million. This week

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