• Onshore wind
• Offshore wind
• Wave & tidal
• Small wind systems
• Wales
• Wind farms in the UK
• Health & Safety
• Events
• Publications
• Latest news
• Jobs
• Membership
• Company Directory
• Members Area

'Business as usual' for wind industry as London Array consortium regroups

BWEA, the UK wind & marine renewables industry trade association, today acknowledged Shell's announcement on selling its stake in the London Array as part and parcel of developing large scale projects.

'This is business as usual' said Maria McCaffery, BWEA Chief Executive. 'Consortia come together to deliver large scale wind farms and then often re-group at various stages of project development, for instance at the planning stage, or once the bids from subcontractors come in. This is common practice in the wind industry and has happened many times already both offshore and onshore.'

The UK wind industry remains confident that the economics of delivering a new generation of offshore wind farms remains sound. With renewables share prices climbing fast and project valuations reaching new records the wind industry is seeing investor interest in the sector reach all time highs.

McCaffery added "While it's easy to understand the frustration from the other scheme partners at the delay this announcement will cause, the fundamentals of the project and the wider industry haven't changed. We expect to see a great deal of industry interest in taking over Shell's share in the London Array."

For further information contact:

Charles Anglin, Director of Communications charles@bwea.com 020 7689 1966, 0797 348 1907
Nick Medic, Communications Manager nick@bwea.com 020 7689 1935, 07977 019 933

Notes to editors

• BWEA (British Wind Energy Association) is the trade body for the UK wind and marine renewables industries. Formed in 1978, and with over 370 corporate members, BWEA is the leading renewable energy trade association in the UK. Wind has been the world's fastest growing renewable energy source for the last seven years, and this trend is expected to continue with falling costs of wind energy and the urgent international need to tackle CO2 emissions to prevent climate change
• The London Array is the biggest wind farm project in the world. When finished it will consist of 341 turbines, with an installed capacity of over 1 GW. Based approx. 20 miles of the coast of Essex, in the middle of the Thames estuary, it could generate enough electricity to power a quarter of London's homes. The three consortium members were looking at building costs of around 2.4 billion, spread over the next six to seven years.
• Increased demand for turbines and components have driven up prices for the offshore sector in the past 2 years, as Round 2 projects have reached a development stage. However, as more sites come on stream manufacturers are already increasing their capacity and prices are expected to level off as capacity expands.
• The Government announced Round 1 of the leasing process for offshore wind farm sites in 2001 and Round 2 in 2003. The London Array is a Round 2 project. Together the two rounds represent 8GW worth of wind farm schemes. The Government announced the beginning of Round 3 in December last year, which will be assessing a further 25GW worth of sites, which would be expected to come online after 2015.
• The Round 2 Greater Gabbard project, for a 500MW offshore wind farm, was developed by Airtricity and the Fluor Corporation, after securing planning permission Fluor sold its stake to Airtricity, and the project is on course and has since signed a deal for 140 turbines.