Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1290983
20 | OCTOBER 2020 | UTILITY WEEK Policy & Regulation Analysis D uncan Baker, the MP for Norfolk North, says he can spot the tell-tale tracks of the subterranean cables that service the offshore windfarms proliferating off the coast of his constituency. In fields planted with oil seed rape, the bright yellow-flowered crop tends to be sparser on land that has been dug up for the 80 to 100m-wide trenches. Overlooking one of those very fields when speaking to Utility Week, the recently elected Conservative MP claims the hit to yields could be "absolutely devastating" to the profits of affected farmers. Added to that, the associated substations can be as big as a football stadium, he says. Baker has no doubts that the windfarms themselves are necessary. The problem is the infrastructure required to pipe the power onshore: a hot potato in a UK holiday desti- nation like Norfolk, where the landscape is a big attraction for visitors. What makes the disruption particularly difficult to swallow is that the transmission lines criss-crossing the county generate few jobs for local workers. Under current transmission arrange- ments, offshore windfarms are directly hooked up to the national grid via their own bespoke or point-to-point connections. This made sense for the first generation of off- shore windfarms, which sprang up in the shallow waters off the East Anglian coast. The then-coalition government liked this system because it injected an element of market forces into offshore trans- mission, which the grid's natural monopoly ruled out on shore. Windfarm developers too were keen to develop their own connections so that they could get their projects up and run- ning without having to wait for a wider network to be developed. However, with the waters off East Anglia set to accommo- date a large chunk of the 40GW of offshore windfarm capacity the government wants to see by 2030, the transmission infra- structure is becoming increas- ingly unpopular locally. Barnaby Wharton, direc- tor of future electricity systems at RenewableUK, says: "If you look at where development is currently happening, the most political salience is in East Anglia, but as this industry develops we are going to want to ensure that we reduce landfalls wherever it might need to be. "It is important that we have a system that minimises this very essential infrastruc- ture and reduces its impact by reducing the number of landfalls." Other European countries have set up offshore shared transmis- sion networks, reflecting their differing geographies, explains Elaine Greig, chief technology officer at the Renewables Consult- ing Group. Germany's offshore windfarms, for example, are concentrated in parts of the North Sea. The dis- tance between shore and wind- farms meant it made sense to create shared connections to the mainland. "The Germans have a different geography. All their windfarms are in the same place, and far away, so they needed a DC connection and shared systems because it's too expensive otherwise," says Greig. These offshore grids entailed a financial hit when they were built, but they Offshore grid debate signals winds of change If the UK is to meet its ambitious offshore wind targets, new thinking is needed on the transmission infrastructure to support it. David Blackman reports. Underground cables can be 'absolutely devestating' on the productivity of the farmland affected DUNCAN BAKER MP Gwynt y Mor windfarm, photo courtesy of Innogy